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KNOLE   and  the   SACKVILLES 


H 

^^^^                                Il^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ES^ 

1 

^^^^^I^HmS^ 

KNOLE 

and 

THE     SACKVILLES 

by 
V.    SACKVILLE-WEST 


NEW    YORK 
GEORGE   H.    DORAN    COMPANY 


Printed  in  England 


/■t  ilHVIVEItSI 


K7     ^3         FOREWORD 


JJl  c;  U.U'OIIIVU 
SAiSTA  IJAitiJAHA 


T!^^?  following  sketches  of  Knole  and  its  owners  lay  no  claim 
to  be  either  exhaustive  or  elaborate.  I  have  no  erudition^  I  have 
only  personal  familiarity.  I  hope^  therefore^  that  they  may  be 
accepted  as  fugitive  impressions  rather  than  examined  as  a 
scholarly  contribution  either  to  history^  art^  or  literature^  and 
that  such  inaccuracies  as  may  inadvertently  have  slipped  in  may 
not  be  too  severely  condemned. 

The  object  of  this  foreword^  however^  is  not  so  much  to  apologise 
for  my  own  shortcomings  as  to  tender  my  thanks  to  those  who  have 
given  me  their  help.  In  the  first  instance  I  wish  to  acknowledge 
the  lavish  courtesy  of  Mr.  Charles  Philips^  who  has  given  me 
access  to  all  his  manuscripts  and  has  responded  to  all  my  demands 
upon  his  encyclopedic  knowledge  ;  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Edward 
Hudson,  who  has  allowed  me  to  reproduce  a  number  of  photo- 
graphs from  "  Country  Life  ";  of  Miss  Beatrice  Essenhigh 
Corke,  to  whom  I  owe  the  remaining  photographs ;  of  Airco 
Aerials  Ltd.,  for  their  aerial  photograph  ;  of  the  Directors  of 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  and  of  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  who  have  given  me  permission  to  reproduce  Plate  8 
and  Plate  1 1  respectively.  I  must  thank  my  father  likewise  for 
giving  me  the  free  run  of  the  Knole  manuscripts  ;  and  my 
mother,  whose  patient  collection  of  books  and  papers  has  been  of 
the  utmost  value  to  me,  and  to  whose  energy  and  devotion  Knole 
owes  so  great  a  debt,  in  that,  thanks  to  her,  every  modern  comfort 
has  been  introduced  with  due  respect  to  the  ancient  character  of 
the  house. 

I  very  much  regret  that  Dr.  Williamson  s  admirable  work  on 
Lady  Anne  Clifford  did  not  come  into  my  hands  in  time  for  me 
to  make  as  much  use  of  it  as  I  should  have  liked,  but  anyone 
wishing  for  a  closer  acquaintance  with  her  life  and  diaries  may 
be  referred  to  his  detailed  study. 

A  chronological  table  has  been  inserted  with  a  view  to  avoiding 
a  superfluity  of  dates  in  the  body  of  the  text ;  and  the  spelling, 
for  the  sake  of  convenience  and  easier  reading,  has  in  nearly 
every  case  been  modernised. 

V.  S.-W. 
May- July  1922 


CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE 

1456     KNOLE  bought  by  Archbishop  bourchier 

i486     Death  of  Bourchier.    Succeeded  by  Cardinal  morton 

1 500     Death  of  Morton.   Succeeded  by  WE-i^sa  dea^ 

1502     Death  of  Dean.   Succeeded  by  wakeh am 

1532     Death  of  War eham.   Succeeded  by  cka'hwek 

I  j'39     KNOLE  given  by  Cranmer  to  henry  viii 

1 546     Death  of  Henry  VIII.   Succeeded  by  edward  vi 

1550     KNOLE  granted  by  Edward  VI  to  john  Dudley,  Earl 

of  Warwick 
i_5'5'6      KNOLE  resold  by  Warwick  to  edward  vi 

1553  Death  of  Edward  VI.    Succeeded  by  queen   mary 
KNOLE  granted  by  the  ^lueen  to  Reginald  pole 

1558     Death  of  Mary.   Succeeded  by  queen  Elizabeth 
1586     KNOLE  granted  to  thomas  sackville  by  Elizabeth 

Thos.  Sackville,  Ijord  Buckhurst,  ist  earlo/dorset 

1536-1608 

1554  M<2m<?^  CECiLiE  baker 

^i'  >  Member  of  Parliament 
1563/  / 

1563      Travelling  abroad 

1566  Death  of  his  father^  Sir  richard 

1567  Cr^<2/^^  Lord  BucKHURST 

1568  Ambassador  to  France 

1569  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Sussex 
1 57 1  Ambassador  to  France 

1586  Execution  of  mary  ^een  (?/ scots 

1586  Given  knole  by  queen  Elizabeth 

1587  Ambassador  to  the  Low  Countries 
1589  Ambassador  to  the  Low  Countries 
1589  Knight  of  the  Garter 

1 59 1  Chancellor  of  Oxford 

1598  Ambassador  to  the  Low  Countries 

1599  Lord  High  Treasurer 
1 60 1  Lord  High  Steward 

1 603  Death  of  §lueen  Elizabeth.    Succeeded  by  james  i 

1 603  Lord  Treasurer  for  life 

1604  Created  Earl  of  Dorset 
1608  Death  at  the  Council  Table 

vii 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE 

1708  Lord  Warden  oj the  Cinque  Forts^  intermittently  tilh  728 

1 7 1 4  Knight  of  the  Garter 

1 7 14  Death  of  ^een  Anne.    Succeeded  by  george  i 

1720  Created  Duke  of  Dorset 

1725  Lord  Steward 

1727  Death  of  George  I.    Succeeded  by  george  ii 

1730  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  till  1737 

1746  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Kent 

1750  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  till  1755 

1760  Death  of  George  II.    Succeeded  by  george  hi 

1765  Death 

Charles  Sackville,  2nd  duke  <?/ Dorset,  171 1-1769 

Before  1734      On  the  Grand  Tour 

1734     Member  of  Parliament  intermittently  till  1754.    Lord 

of  the  Treasury  and  Master  of  the  Horse 
1 744     Married  grace  boyle 

1765      Succeeded  his  father^  Lionel,  as  Duke  of  Dorset 
1769     Death 

John  Frederick  Sackville,  3rd  dukeo/dorset, 

1 745-1 799 
Succeeded  his  uncle^  charles 

Ambassador  to  louis  xvi 

Knight  of  the  Garter 

Lord-Lieutenant  of  Kent 

Lord  Steward 

Married  ARABELLA  diana,  daughter  of  Sir  john  cope, 
of  Bramshill 
1799     Death 

George  John  Frederick  Sackville,  4th  dukeo/dor- 
set,    1 794-1815 

1799      Succeeded  his  father,  john  Frederick 
1 8 1 5     Death 

X 


TABLE    OF    DESCENT 

Herbrand     de     Sacklville,  temp.  laHilliam  tbc  elonqueror 

I 
SIR    RICHARD    SACKVILLE,  temp.  Dcnrp  VIII 

..I 

THOMAS  SACKVILLE  m.   CectUe  Baker 
b.  1536       d.  1608 

LORD   BUCKHURST  and 
1st  EARL  0/"dORSET,  K.G. 

ROBERT  SACKVILLE  m.    Lady  Margaret  Howard 
b.  1 56 1        d.  1609 

2nd    EARL    of   DORSET 


RICHARD    SACKVILLE    m. 

Lady  Anne  Clifford 
h.  1589        d.  1624 

ird   EARL    of  DORSET,  K.G. 


EDWARD    SACKVILLE    m. 

Mary  Curzon 
b.  1589  or  '90  d.  1652 

\t/l    EARL    of  DORSET,    K.G. 
I 


RICHARD  SACKVILLE  m.    Lady  Frances  Cranfield 

b.   \(:>11    d.   1677,  5//^  EARL  (?/" DORSET    I 

CHARLES  SACKVILLE  m.    Lady  Mary  Compton 
b.  1637  or  '36       d.  1706 

6tk    EARL    of  DORSET,    K.G. 

LIONEL  SACKVILLE  m.   Elizabeth  Colyear 
b.  1686     d.  1765  [k.g. 

7/y^  EARL  and  ISt  DUKE  (T/' DORSET, 


CHARLES  SACKVILLE       LORD  JOHN  SACKVILLE  LORD  GEORGE  SACKVILLE 

b.  lyii        d.  1769  d.  1765  b.  iyi6  d.  ijS^ 

2nd  DUKE    0/"  DORSET  |  Cr.  VISCOUNT    SACKVILLE 

JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE  | 

m.  Arabella  Diana  Cope  of  Brsimshill       charles  sackville 
b.   1745  d.    1799  b.  1767  d.  1843 

3r^   DUKE    0/"  DORSET,    K.G.  5//^  DUKE  s/dORSET,  K.G. 


LADY  MARY  SACKVILLE  GEORGE  JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE 

/».  1794       ^.1815  4/i  DUKE  (p/dORSET 

LADY      ELIZABETH     SACKVILLE 

m.  fohn  West,  Earl  de  la  IVarr 
b.  1796  d.  1870 


CHARLES  MORTIMER  LIONEL  WILLIAM 

EARL  DE  LA  WARR       I //LORD  SACKVILLE       2  W  LORD  SACKVILLE  | 

d.    1873  b.    1820  Zi.   1827       LIONEL,  3r^ LORD  SACKVILLE 

d.  1888  d.  1908  b.  1867 

xii 


CONTENTS 

Foreword  p,  v 

Chronological  Table  vij 

Table  oj  Descent  xii 

Ch.  I  The  House  p.   i 

II  The  Garden  and  Park  20 

III  Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  EUzabeth  28 

IV  Knole  in  the  Reign  of  James  I  48 
V   Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  I  82 

VI  Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  II  in 

VII   Knole  in  the  Early  Eighteenth  Century  152 

VIII   Knole    at   the   End  of  the   Eighteenth 

Century  176 

IX  Knole  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  201 

Appendix  221 

Index  223 


xni 


The  dome  of  Knole^  by  fame  enrolled^ 
The  Church  of  Canterbury^ 

The  hops^  the  beer^  the  cherries  there^ 
Would  fill  a  noble  story. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN     FREDERICK     SACKVILLE,    3RD     DUKE    OF     DORSET. 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Gainsborough  Frontispiece 

NORTH-EAST  VIEW  OF  KNOLE.   From  the  drawing  by  t.  bridge- 
man  To  face  page      2 

THE    green    court,    BOURCHIEr's    ORIEL  6 

THE  STONE   COURT,  BOURCHIER's   GATEHOUSE  10 

THE    STONE    COURT  1 6 

KNOLE    FROM    AN    AEROPLANE  20 

THE    GARDEN    SIDE  22 

A    GATEWAY    INTO    THE    GARDEN  26 

A   CONFERENCE   OF   ENGLISH   AND  SPANISH  PLENIPOTENTIARIES 

AT   SOMERSET    HOUSE   IN    1604.     From   the  painting  by 
MARC  GHEERHARDTS  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  32 

LEAD  PIPE-HEADS.     Put  up  by  THOMAS  SACKVILLE  in   1605  3^ 

THE     GREAT     STAIRCASE    (uPPER    FLIGHt).      Built    by    THOMAS 

SACKVILLE    1604-8  46 

RICHARD    SACKVILLE,    3RD    EARL    OF    DORSET,    K.G.      From    the 

miniature   by  isaac   Oliver  in  the   Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum  52 

lady  ANNE  CLIFFORD,  wife  (?/" RICHARD  SACKVILLE,  yd  Farl  of 

Dorset.   From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  mytens  56 

LADY  MARGARET  SACKVILLE,  daughter  to  RICHARD  SACKVILLE, 

yd  Earl  of  Dorset,  and  lady  anne  Clifford  :   "  The 
Child."   From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  mytens  68 

THE    VENETIAN    AMBASSADOR'S    BEDROOM  72 

EDWARD    SACKVILLE,    4TH    EARL    OF    DORSET,    K.G.      From    the 

portrait  at  Knole  by  vandyck  84 

THE  TWO  SONS  OF  EDWARD,  4TH  EARL  OF  DORSET  :  RICHARD, 
LORD    BUCKHURST    and    THE    HON.     EDWARD    SACKVILLE. 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Cornelius  nuie  io6 

CHARLES  SACKVILLE,  6th  EARL  OF  DORSET,  K.G.  From  the  por- 
trait by  Sir  Godfrey  kneller  in  the  Poets'  Parlour  at 
Knole  116 

THE  BROWN  GALLERY.  BuHt  by  ARCHBISHOP  BOURCHIER  tU   I460   I48 

XV 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

LADY   BETTY   GERMAiNE,     From  the  portrait  at   Knole  by  c. 

p  H I L  LI  PS  To  face  page     1 68 

LADY  BETTY  GERMAINE's  BEDROOM  AT  KNOLE  \']1 

H  WANG-A-TUNG,  A  CHINESE  BOY,  page  to  the  3rd  Dulce  of  Dorset. 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Sir  joshua  Reynolds  192 

JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE,  3RD  EARL  OF  DORSET  ;  ARABELLA 
DIANA,  3RD  DUCHESS  OF  DORSET;  THE  EARL  OF  MIDDLE- 
SEX ;  LADY  ELIZABETH  SACKVILLE,  and  LADY  MARY  SACK- 
VILLE. From  a  silhouette  by  a.  t.  terstan  1797.  The 
property  of  lady  sackville  196 

GEORGE  JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE,  4TH  EARL  OF  DORSET; 
LADY  MARY  SACKVILLE,  and  LADY  ELIZABETH  SACKVILLE. 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  hoppner  204 

ROCKING-HORSE,  once  the  property  of  the  4th  Duke  of  Dorset : 

A  RECEIPT  from  GAINSBOROUGH  208 


XVI 


CHAPTER   I 
The  House 

§i 

THERE  are  two  sides  from  which  you  may  first 
profitably  look  at  the  house.  One  is  from  the 
park,  the  north  side.  From  here  the  pile  shows 
best  the  vastness  of  its  size ;  it  looks  like  a  mediaeval 
village.  It  is  heaped  with  no  attempt  at  symmetry  ;  it 
is  sombre  and  frowning  ;  the  grey  towers  rise ;  the 
battlements  cut  out  their  square  regularity  against  the 
sky;  the  buttresses  of  the  old  twelfth-century  tithe- 
barn  give  a  rough  impression  of  fortifications.  There 
is  a  line  of  trees  in  one  of  the  inner  courtyards,  and 
their  green  heads  show  above  the  roofs  of  the  old 
breweries  ;  but  although  they  are  actually  trees  of  a 
considerable  size  they  are  dwarfed  and  unnoticeable 
against  the  mass  of  the  buildings  blocked  behind  them. 
The  whole  pile  soars  to  a  peak  which  is  the  clock- 
tower  with  its  pointed  roof:  it  might  be  the  spire  of 
the  church  on  the  summit  of  the  hill  crowning  the 
mediaeval  village.  At  sunset  I  have  seen  the  silhouette 
of  the  great  building  stand  dead  black  on  a  red  sky ;  on 
moonlight  nights  it  stands  black  and  silent,  with  glinting 
windows,  like  an  enchanted  castle.  On  misty  autumn 
nights  I  have  seen  it  emerging  partially  from  the  trails 
of  vapour,  and  heard  the  lonely  roar  of  the  red  deer 
roaming  under  the  walls. 

The  other  side  is  the  garden  side — the  gay,  princely 
side,  with  flowers  in  the  foreground ;  the  grey  walls 
rising  straight  up  from  the  green  turf;  the  mullioned 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

windows,  and  the  Tudor  gables  with  the  heraldic 
leopards  sitting  stiffly  at  each  corner.  The  park  side  is 
the  side  for  winter;  the  garden  side  the  side  for 
summer.  It  has  an  indescribable  gaiety  and  courtliness. 
The  grey  of  the  Kentish  rag  is  almost  pearly  in  the  sun, 
the  occasional  coral  festoon  of  a  climbing  rose  dashed 
against  it ;  the  long  brown-red  roofs  are  broken  by  the 
chimney-stacks  with  their  slim,  peaceful  threads  of  blue 
smoke  mounting  steadily  upwards.  One  looks  down 
upon  the  house  from  a  certain  corner  in  the  garden. 
Here  is  a  bench  among  a  group  of  yews — dark,  red- 
berried  yews;  and  the  house  lies  below  one  in  the 
hollow,  lovely  in  its  colour  and  its  serenity.  It  has  all 
the  quality  of  peace  and  permanence  ;  of  mellow  age  ; 
of  stateliness  and  tradition.  It  is  gentle  and  venerable. 
Yet  it  is,  as  I  have  said,  gay.  It  has  the  deep  inward 
gaiety  of  some  very  old  woman  who  has  always  been 
beautiful,  who  has  had  many  lovers  and  seen  many 
generations  come  and  go,  smiled  wisely  over  their 
sorrows  and  their  joys,  and  learnt  an  imperishable 
secret  of  tolerance  and  humour.  It  is,  above  all,  an 
English  house.  It  has  the  tone  of  England  ;  it  melts 
into  the  green  of  the  garden  turf,  into  the  tawnier  green 
of  the  park  beyond,  into  the  blue  of  the  pale  English 
sky;  it  settles  down  into  its  hollow  amongst  the 
cushioned  tops  of  the  trees;  the  brown -red  of  those 
roofs  is  the  brown-red  of  the  roofs  of  humble  farms  and 
pointed  oast-houses,  such  as  stain  over  a  wide  landscape 
of  England  the  quilt-like  pattern  of  the  fields.  I  make 
bold  to  say  that  it  stoops  to  nothing  either  pretentious 
or  meretricious.  There  is  here  no  flourish  of  archi- 
tecture, no  ornament  but  the  leopards,  rigid  and 
vigilant.  The  stranger  may  even  think,  upon  arrival, 
that  the  front  of  the  house  is  disappointing.    It  is, 

2 


^  H 


X  ■£ 

o  ti: 


THE   HOUSE 

indeed,  extremely  modest.  There  is  a  gate-house 
flanked  by  two  square  grey  towers,  placed  between 
two  wings  which  provide  only  a  monotony  of  windows 
and  gables.  It  is  true  that  two  or  three  fine  sycamores, 
symmetrical  and  circular  as  open  umbrellas,  redeem 
the  severity  of  the  front,  and  that  a  herd  of  fallow  deer, 
browsing  in  the  dappled  shade  of  the  trees,  maintains 
the  tradition  of  an  English  park.  But,  for  the  rest,  the 
front  of  the  house  is  so  severe  as  to  be  positively  un- 
interesting; it  is  quiet  and  monkish;  "  a  beautiful  de- 
cent simplicity,"  said  Horace  Walpole,  "  which  charms 
one."  There  is  here  to  be  found  none  of  the  splendour 
of  Elizabethan  building.  A  different  impression,  how- 
ever, is  in  store  when  once  the  wicket-gate  has  been 
opened.  You  are  in  a  courtyard  of  a  size  the  frontage 
had  never  led  you  to  expect,  and  the  vista  through  a 
second  gateway  shows  you  the  columns  of  a  second 
court ;  your  eye  is  caught  by  an  oriel  window  opposite, 
and  by  other  windows  with  heraldic  bearings  in  their 
panes,  promise  of  rooms  and  galleries  ;  by  gables  and 
the  heraldic  leopards ;  by  the  clock  tower  which  gives 
an  oddly  Chinese  effect  immediately  above  the  Tudor 
oriel.  Up  till  a  few  years  ago  Virginia  creeper  blazed 
scarlet  in  autumn  on  the  walls  of  the  Green  Court,  but 
it  has  now  been  torn  away,  and  what  may  be  lost  in 
colour  is  compensated  by  the  gain  in  seeing  the  grey 
stone  and  the  slight  moulding  which  runs,  following 
the  shape  of  the  towers,  across  the  house. 

On  the  whole,  the  quadrangle  is  reminiscent  of 
Oxford,  though  more  palatial  and  less  studious.  The 
house  is  built  round  a  system  of  these  courtyards: 
first  this  one,  the  Green  Court,  which  is  the  largest  and 
most  magnificent;  then  the  second  one,  or  Stone 
Court,  which  is  not  turfed,  like  the  Green  Court,  but 

3 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

wholly  paved,  and  which  has  along  one  side  of  it  a 
Jacobean  colonnade  ;  the  third  court  is  the  Water 
Court,  and  has  none  of  the  display  of  the  first  two  :  it 
is  smaller,  and  quite  demure,  indeed  rather  Hke  some 
old  house  in  Nuremberg,  with  the  latticed  window 
of  one  of  the  galleries  running  the  whole  length 
of  it,  and  the  friendly  unconcern  of  an  immense 
bay-tree  growing  against  one  of  its  walls.  There 
are  four  other  courts,  making  seven  in  all.  This 
number  is  supposed  to  correspond  to  the  days  in 
the  week  ;  and  in  pursuance  of  this  conceit  there  are 
in  the  house  fifty-two  staircases,  corresponding  to  the 
weeks  in  the  year,  and  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
rooms,  corresponding  to  the  days.  I  cannot  truthfully 
pretend  that  I  have  ever  verified  these  counts,  and  it 
may  be  that  their  accuracy  is  accepted  solely  on  the 
strength  of  the  legend;  but,  if  this  is  so,  then  it  has  been 
a  very  persistent  legend,  and  I  prefer  to  sympathise 
with  the  amusement  of  the  ultimate  architect  on 
making  the  discovery  that  by  a  judicious  jugghng  with 
his  additions  he  could  bring  courts,  stairs,  and  rooms 
up  to  that  satisfactory  total. 

A  stone  lobby  under  the  oriel  window  divides  the 
Green  Court  from  the  Stone  Court.  In  summer  the 
great  oak  doors  of  this  second  gate-house  are  left  open, 
and  it  has  sometimes  happened  that  I  have  found  a  stag 
in  the  banqueting  hall,  puzzled  but  still  dignified, 
strayed  in  from  the  park  since  no  barrier  checked  him. 

It  becomes  impossible,  after  passing  through  the 
formality  of  the  two  first  quadrangles,  to  follow  the 
ramblings  of  the  house  geographically.  They  are  so  in- 
volved that,  after  a  lifetime  of  familiarity,  I  still  catch  my- 
self pausing  to  think  out  the  shortest  route  from  one  room 
to  another.    Four  acres  of  building  is  no  mean  matter. 

4 


THE   HOUSE 


§  iii 


Into  the  very  early  mediaeval  history  of  the  house  I 
do  not  think  that  I  need  enter.  It  is  suggested  that  a 
Roman  building  once  occupied  the  site,  and  that 
some  foundations  which  were  recently  unearthed 
beneath  the  larder — evidently  one  of  the  oldest  por- 
tions— once  formed  part  of  that  construction.  The 
question  of  dating  the  existing  buildings,  however,  is 
quite  sufficiently  complicated  without  going  back  to  a 
building  which  no  longer  exists.  Nor  do  I  think  that 
the  early  owners — the  Pembrokes,  or  the  Say  and 
Seles — offer  the  smallest  interest  ;  if  we  knew  pre- 
cisely what  parts  of  the  house  we  owed  to  them 
severally  it  would  be  another  matter,  but  the  mediaeval 
records  are  very  scanty.  It  is  safe  to  say,  generally 
speaking,  that  the  north  side  is  the  oldest  side  ;  it  is 
the  most  sombre,  the  most  massive,  and  the  most 
irregular;  there  are  buttresses,  battlements,  and 
towers,  but  no  gables  and  no  embellishments — nothing 
but  solid  masonry.  Up  in  the  north-east  corner  is  the 
old  kitchen,  and  the  old  entrances  through  dark  arch- 
ways at  the  top  of  stairways.  The  passages  here,  of 
thick  stone,  twist  oddly,  and  their  ceilings  are  groined 
by  semi-arches  which  have  become  lost  and  embedded 
in  the  alterations  to  the  stone-work.  It  is  a  dark,  mas- 
sive, little-visited  corner,  this  nucleus  of  Knole. 

The  house,  or  such  portions  of  it  as  then  existed,  was 
bought  from  William,  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  by 
Bourchier,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  on  June  30, 
1456,  and  it  is  clear  from  the  numerous  bills  among 
the  archives  at  Lambeth  Palace  that  both  he  and  his 
more  notable  successor.  Cardinal  Morton,  carried  out 
extensive  additions,  alterations,  and  repairs.  It  is,  how- 

5 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

ever,  a  very  difficult  task  to  determine  what  parts  of  the 
building  definitely  belong  to  this  period,  for, what  with 
the  additions  of  the  archbishops  and  the  alterations  of 
the  later  Sackvilles,  all  is  confusion.  It  would  appear, 
for  instance,  that  upon  a  foundation  of  Tudor  masonry 
the  Sackvilles  constructed  the  Elizabethan  gables 
which  are  now  so  characteristic  a  feature  of  the  house ; 
but  it  is  less  easy  to  say  exactly  how  much  the  first 
Tudor  archbishop  found  there  on  his  arrival  of 
earlier  workmanship.  A  further  confusing  factor  is  the 
great  fire  which  took  place  in  1623,  and  is  reported  to 
have  destroyed  a  large  part  of  the  building — but 
exactly  where,  and  how  much,  we  cannot  say.  Nor  are 
the  accounts  at  Lambeth  very  illuminating  : 

In  divers  costs  and  expenses  made  this  year  [1467]  for 
repairing  the  manor  of  Knole,  carriage  for  the  two  cart  loads 
of  lathes  from  Panters  to  the  manor,  141^.  For  carriage  of 
thirty  loads  of  stone  for  the  new  tower,  ']d.  load  =  16/9. 
Carriage  of  six  loads  of  timber  at  ^d.  =  n^l^.  Carriage  of  one 
fother  of  lead  from  London  to  Knole,  3/4. 

The  next  year,  1468  : 

Repairs  at  Knole.  One  labourer  for  6  days  work  in  the 
great  chamber  and  the  new  seler^  2/—.  Making  of  700 
lathes  to  the  new  tower,  i4.d.  One  labourer  4^  days  in  the 
old  kitchen,  4^.  Item,  for  i  j  M^  of  walle  prygge  (sic)  to  the 
stable  and  other  places,  13^.   One  cowl  to  the  masonry,  I2d. 

The  "  great  chamber  "  referred  to  here  was  in  all 
probability  the  present  Great  Hall,  which  we  know  to 
have  been  built  by  Bourchier  about  1460,  although  it 
was  altered  by  Thomas  Sackville,  who  put  in  the  present 
ceiling,  panelling,  and  oak  screen.  Thomas  also  built 
the  Great  Staircase  in  1604-8,  leading  to  the  Ball- 
room, which  is  of  the  time  of  Bourchier.  I  expect  this 
is  the   "  seler  "   referred   to,   meaning  solar  and   not 

6 


THE  GREEN  COURT:   BOURCHIER'S  ORIEL 


THE   HOUSE 

cellar,  as  might  be  thought  ;  or  did  it  mean  the  present 
colonnade,  which  is  also  of  Bourchier's  building,  in 
1468  ?  The  position  of  the  "  new  tower  "  is  nowhere 
specified,  but  I  wonder  whether  it  is  not  the  tower 
beside  the  chapel,  where  there  is  a  stone  fireplace  bear- 
ing Bourchier's  cognisance — the  double  knot — and  the 
same  device  in  a  small  pane  of  stained  glass  in  the  win- 
dow. This  tower,  moreover,  goes  commonly  by  the 
name  of  Bourchier's  Tower. 

There  are  a  few  more  items  mentioned  in  the 
Lambeth  papers,  1468-9  :  *'  Repairs  at  Knole.  Re- 
pairs at  one  house  set  aside  for  the  slaughter  of  sheep 
and  other  [animals  ?]  for  the  use  of  the  Lord's  great 
house  at  Sevenoaks,  113J.  2^."  This,  I  think,  is  cer- 
tainly the  old  slaughter-house  which  forms  one  side  of 
the  Queen's  Court.  It  is  obviously  a  very  old  building. 
But  there  is  one  point  in  this  account  which  is  of 
interest,  namely,  that  Knole  should  at  this  date  have 
been  referred  to  as  the  "  great  house."  This  would 
seem  to  prove  that  the  greater  mass  of  the  building  was 
already  in  existence,  since  by  the  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century  there  were  already  many  houses  and 
palaces  in  England  whose  bulk  would  argue  that  the 
current  standard  of  greatness  might  be  high  and  the 
adjective  not  too  readily  applied.  The  Primate  owned, 
moreover,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation  no  less 
than  twelve  palaces  and  houses  of  residence  in  the 
diocese  of  Canterbury  alone,  namely,  Bekesburn,  Ford, 
Maidstone,  Charing,  Saltwood,  Aldington,  Wingham, 
Wrotham,  Tenterden,  Knole,  Otford,  and  Canterbury. 
It  seems,  therefore,  unlikely  that  Knole  should  be 
singled  out  as  a  "  great  house  "  unless  there  were  good 
justification  for  the  expression. 

Bourchier  also  built  the  Brown  Gallery  about  1460, 

7 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

and  at  or  about  the  same  date  he  put  up  the  machicola- 
tions over  the  gate-house  between  the  Green  Court  and 
the  Stone  Court.  Towards  the  end  of  the  same  cen- 
tury, Morton,  his  successor,  "  threw  out  an  oriel 
window  which  rendered  the  machicolations  useless, 
and  showed  that  all  idea  of  such  fortifications  was  at  an 
end."  It  is  not  known  precisely  how  much  Morton 
built  at  Knole.  It  is  even  uncertain  whether  he  or 
Bourchier  built  the  Chapel.  The  Lambeth  records 
cease  with  some  small  repairs  in  1487-88,  so  we 
have  nothing  to  go  upon — all  the  more  pity,  for 
Morton  was  a  great  prelate,  forgotten  now  in  the 
greater  fame  of  the  Tudor  dynasty,  "  his  name 
buried,"  says  his  chronicler,  **  under  his  own  creation." 
This  cardinal,  having  succeeded  Bourchier  in  i486, 
held  the  Primacy  for  fourteen  years,  and  died  at  Knole 
in  1500.  I  pass  over  his  successors,  Dean  and  Ware- 
ham,  for  I  do  not  know  how  much  they  did  at  Knole. 
Cranmer,  the  next  archbishop,  enjoyed  the  house  for 
seven  years  only,  when  he  was  compelled — quite 
amicably,  but  nevertheless  compelled — to  present  it  to 
Henry  VIII,  whose  fancy  it  had  taken.  Here  the 
accounts  begin  again, ^  although  they  give  very  little 
indication:  ^872  by  Royal  Warrant  in  1543,  ^^770  in 
1548,  ^80  in  1546 — three  sums  which  would  now  be 
equivalent,  roughly,  to  ^^3  0,000. 

After  Henry  VIII  Knole  continued  as  Crown 
property,  passing  now  and  then  temporarily  into  the 
hands  of  various  favourites,  until  in  1586  it  was  given 
by  Queen  Elizabeth  to  her  cousin,  Thomas  Sackville, 
and  has  remained  in  the  possession  of  his  family  ever 
since. 

1  State  papers  of  Henry  VIII. 


8 


THE   HOUSE 

§  iv 

The  main  block,  therefore,  meanders  from  Henry 
VII  through  Henry  VIII  to  Elizabeth  and  James  I  : 
that  is  to  say,  roughly,  from  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  to  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth.  There 
may  be  earlier  out-buildings  and  later  excrescences, 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  greater  portion  was  built 
in  the  reigns  of  the  Tudors.  It  is  all  of  the  same 
Kentish  rag,  with  the  exception  of  a  row  of  gables 
which  have  been  plastered  over,  and  which  were  prob- 
ably once  of  the  beam-and-plaster  fashion  so  prevalent 
at  that  date  in  Kent.  With  this  exception  the  walls  are 
of  the  grey  stone,  in  many  places  ten  and  twelve  feet 
thick,  cool  in  summer,  and,  for  some  reason,  not  par- 
ticularly warm  in  winter.  The  rooms  are,  for  the  most 
part,  rather  small  and  rather  low  ;  they  break  out,  of 
course,  now  into  galleries,  now  into  a  ball-room,  now 
into  a  banqueting-hall,  but  the  majority  of  them  are 
small,  friendly  rooms — not  intimidating  ;  some  people 
might  even  think  them  poky,  relative  to  the  size  of  the 
house.  I  do  not  think  that  they  are  poky.  They  are 
eminently  rooms  intended  to  be  lived  in,  and  not 
merely  admired,  though  no  doubt  a  practical  con- 
sideration was  present  in  the  problem  of  heating  to 
determine  their  size.  Yet  from  an  old  diary  preserved 
at  Knole,  and  from  which  in  its  place  I  shall  have  the 
opportunity  to  give  extracts,  it  is  clear  that  in  the 
early  seventeenth  century  at  all  events  the  life  of  the 
house  was  carried  on  largely  in  one  or  the  other  of  the 
long  galleries.  Now,  none  of  the  galleries  has  more  than 
one  fireplace.  It  must  have  been  very  cold.  The  old 
braziers  that  could  be  carried  about  the  room  as 
occasion  required  still  stand  in  the  rooms  where  they 

9 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

were  used,  and  so  do  the  copper  warming-pans,  shining 
and  perforated,  which  were  thrust  into  the  beds  to 
warm  them  before  the  arrival  of  the  occupant.  The 
principal  beds,  of  course,  must  have  been  magni- 
ficently stuffy.  They  are  four-posters,  so  tall  as  to 
reach  from  floor  to  ceiling,  with  stiff  brocaded  cur- 
tains that  could  completely  enclose  the  sleeper.  But 
on  winter  days  I  cannot  believe  that  the  group  ever 
moved  very  far  away  from  the  fireplace  or  the  brazier ; 
and  indeed,  judging  from  the  same  diary,  they  seemed 
always  to  be  *'  keeping  their  chamber  "  on  account  of 
coughs,  colds,  rheumatism,  or  ague  when  they  were 
not  keeping  it  because  they  were  "  sullen  "  with  one 
another,  or  '*  brought  to  bed  "  of  a  son  or  a  daughter. 

The  galleries  are  perhaps  the  most  characteristic 
rooms  in  such  a  house. 

Long  and  narrow,  with  dark  shining  floors,  armorial 
glass  in  the  windows,  rich  plasterwork  ceilings,  and 
portraits  on  the  walls,  they  are  splendidly  sombre  and 
sumptuous.  The  colour  of  the  Cartoon  Gallery,  when 
I  have  come  into  it  in  the  evening,  with  the  sunset 
flaming  through  the  west  window,  has  often  taken  my 
breath  away.  I  have  stood,  stock  still  and  astonished, 
in  the  doorA\'ay.  The  gallery  is  ninety  feet  in  length, 
the  floor  formed  of  black  oak  planks  irregularly  laid, 
the  charm  of  which  is  that  they  are  not  planks  at  all, 
but  soHd  tree-trunks,  spUt  in  half,  with  the  rounded 
half  downwards  ;  and  on  this  oak  flooring  lie  the  blue 
and  scarlet  patches  from  the  stained  west  window,  more 
subduedly  echoed  in  the  velvets  of  the  chair  coverings, 
the  coloured  marbles  of  the  great  Renaissance  fire- 

lO 


THE  STONE  COURT:    BOURCHIER'S  GATEHOUSE 


THE  HOUSE 

place,  and  the  fruits  and  garlands  of  the  carved  wood- 
work surrounding  the  windows.  There  is  nothing 
garish  :  all  the  colours  have  melted  into  an  old 
harmony  that  is  one  of  the  principal  beauties  of  these 
rooms.  The  walls  here  in  the  Cartoon  Gallery  are  hung 
with  rose-red  Genoa  velvet,  so  lovely  that  I  almost 
regret  Mytens'  copies  of  the  Raphael  cartoons  hiding 
most  of  it  ;  but  if,  at  Knole,  one  were  too  nicely 
reluctant  to  sacrifice  the  walls,  whether  panelled  or 
velvet-hung,  then  all  the  pictures  would  have  to  be 
stacked  on  the  floor  of  the  attics.  The  same  regret 
applies  to  the  ball-room,  where  the  Elizabethan 
panelling — oak,  but  originally  painted  white,  turned 
by  age  to  ivory — is  so  covered  up  as  to  be  unnoticeable 
behind  the  Sackville  portraits  of  ten  generations. 
Fortunately,  the  frieze  in  the  ball-room  cannot  be 
hidden.  It  used  to  delight  me  as  a  child,  with  its  carved 
intricacies  of  mermaids  and  dolphins,  mermen  and 
mermaids  with  scaly,  twisting  tails  and  salient  anatomy, 
and  I  was  invariably  contemptuous  of  those  visitors  to 
whom  I  pointed  out  the  frieze  but  who  were  more 
interested  in  the  pictures.  It  always  fell  to  my  lot  to 
"  show  the  house  "  to  visitors  when  I  was  living  there 
alone  with  my  grandfather,  for  he  shared  the  family 
failing  of  unsociability,  and  whenever  a  telegram 
arrived  threatening  invasion  he  used  to  take  the  next 
train  to  London  for  the  day,  returning  in  the  evening 
when  the  coast  was  clear.  It  mattered  nothing  that 
I  was  every  whit  as  bored  by  the  invasion  as  he  could 
have  been  ;  in  a  divergence  between  the  wishes  of 
eighty  and  the  wishes  of  eight,  the  wishes  of  eight 
went  to  the  wall. 


II 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

§  vi 

There  are  other  galleries,  older  and  more  austere 
than  the  Cartoon  Gallery.  They  are  not  quite  so  long, 
they  are  narrower,  lower,  and  darker,  and  not  so 
exuberant  in  decoration  ;  indeed,  they  are  simply  and 
soberly  panelled  in  oak.  They  have  the  old,  musty 
smell  which,  to  me,  whenever  I  met  it,  would  bring 
back  Knole.  I  suppose  it  is  really  the  smell  of  all  old 
houses — a  mixture  of  woodwork,  pot-pourri,  leather, 
tapestry,  and  the  little  camphor  bags  which  keep  away 
the  moth  ;  the  smell  engendered  by  the  shut  windows 
of  winter  and  the  open  windows  of  summer,  with  the 
breeze  of  summer  blowing  in  from  across  the  park. 
Bowls  of  lavender  and  dried  rose-leaves  stand  on  the 
window-sills  ;  and  if  you  stir  them  up  you  get  the 
quintessence  of  the  smell,  a  sort  of  dusty  fragrance, 
sweeter  in  the  under  layers  where  it  has  held  the  damp 
of  the  spices.  The  pot-pourri  at  Knole  is  always  made 
from  the  recipe  of  a  prim-looking  little  old  lady  who 
lived  there  for  many  years  as  a  guest  in  the  reigns  of 
George  I  and  George  II.  Her  two  rooms  open  out  of 
one  of  the  galleries,  two  of  the  smallest  rooms  in  the 
house,  the  bedroom  hung  with  a  pale  landscape  of 
blue-green  tapestry,  the  sitting-room  panelled  in  oak  ; 
and  in  the  bedroom  stands  her  small  but  pompous  bed, 
with  bunches  of  ostrich-plumes  nodding  at  each  of  the 
four  corners.  Strangers  usually  seem  to  like  these  two 
little  rooms  best,  coming  to  them  as  they  do,  rather 
overawed  by  the  splendour  of  the  galleries  ;  they  are 
amused  by  the  smallness  of  the  four-poster,  square  as  a 
box,  its  creamy  lining  so  beautifully  quilted ;  by  the 
spinning-wheel,  with  the  shuttle  still  full  of  old  flax; 
and  by  the  ring-box,  containing  a  number  of  plain-cut 

12 


THE   HOUSE 

Stones,  which  could  be  exchanged  at  will  into  the 
single  gold  setting  provided.  The  windows  of  these 
rooms,  furthermore,  look  out  on  to  the  garden  ;  they 
are  human,  habitable  little  rooms,  reassuring  after  the 
pomp  of  the  Ball-room  and  the  galleries.  In  the 
sitting-room  there  is  a  small  portrait  of  the  prim  lady, 
Lady  Betty  Germaine,  sitting  very  stiff  in  a  blue 
brocaded  dress  ;  she  looks  as  though  she  had  been  a 
martinet  in  a  tight,  narrow  way. 

The  gallery  leading  to  these  rooms  is  called  the 
Brown  Gallery.  It  is  well  named — oak  floor,  oak 
walls,  and  barrelled  ceiling,  criss-crossed  with  oak 
slats  in  a  pattern  something  like  cat's  cradle.  Some  of 
the  best  pieces  of  the  English  furniture  are  ranged 
down  each  side  of  this  gallery  :  portentously  important 
chairs,  Jacobean  cross-legged  or  later  love-seats  in 
their  original  coverings,  whether  of  plum  and  silver, 
or  red  brocade  with  heavy  fringes,  or  green  with  silver 
fringes,  or  yellow  silk  sprigged  in  black,  or  powder- 
blue  ;  and  all  have  their  attendant  stool  squatting 
beside  them.  They  are  lovely,  silent  rows,  for  ever 
holding  out  their  arms,  and  for  ever  disappointed.  At 
the  end  of  this  gallery  is  a  tiny  oratory,  down  two 
steps,  for  the  use  of  the  devout  :  this  little,  almost 
secret,  place  glows  with  colour  like  a  jewel,  but  nobody 
ever  notices  it,  and  on  the  whole  it  probably  prefers 
to  hide  itself  away  unobserved. 

There  is  also  the  Leicester  Gallery,  which  preserves  in 
its  name  the  sole  trace  of  Lord  Leicester's  brief  owner- 
ship of  Knole.  The  Leicester  Gallery  is  very  dark  and 
mysterious,  furnished  with  red  velvet  Cromwellian 
farthingale  chairs  and  sofas,  dark  as  wine  ;  there  are 
illuminated  scrolls  of  two  family  pedigrees — Sackville 
and  Curzon — richly  emblazoned  with  coats  of  arms, 

13 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

drawn  out  in  i  589  and  1623  respectively  ;  and  in  the 
end  window  there  is  a  small  stained-glass  portrait  of 
"Herbrand  de  Sackville,  a  Norman  notable,  came  into 
England  with  William  the  Conqueror,  a.d.  1066." 
(Herbrandus  de  Sackville^  Praepotens  Normanus, 
intrav'tt  AngUam  cum  Gulielmo  Conquestore,  Anno 
Domini  MLXVI.)  There  is  also  a  curious  portrait 
hanging  on  one  of  the  doors,  of  Catherine  Fitzgerald 
Countess  of  Desmond,  the  portrait  of  a  very  old  lady, 
in  a  black  dress  and  a  white  ruff,  with  that  strange 
far-away  look  in  her  dead  blue  eyes  that  comes  with 
extreme  age.  For  tradition  says  of  her  that  she  was 
born  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Fourth  and  died  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  breaking  her  leg 
incidentally  at  the  age  of  ninety  by  falling  off  a  cherry 
tree  ;  that  is  to  say,  she  was  a  child  when  the  princes 
were  smothered  in  the  Tower,  a  girl  when  Henry  the 
Seventh  came  to  the  throne,  and  watched  the  pageant 
of  all  the  Tudors  and  the  accession  of  the  Stuarts — the 
whole  of  English  history  enclosed  between  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  and  the  Civil  War.  She  must  have  been  a 
truly  legendary  figure  in  the  country  by  the  time  she 
had  reached  the  age  of  a  hundred  and  forty  or  there- 
abouts. 

It  is  rather  a  frightening  portrait,  that  portrait  of 
Lady  Desmond.  If  you  go  into  the  gallery  after  night- 
fall with  a  candle  the  pale,  far-away  eyes  stare  past 
you  into  the  dark  corners  of  the  wainscot,  eyes  either 
over-charged  or  empty — which  ?  The  house  is  not 
haunted,  but  you  require  either  an  unimaginative 
nerve  or  else  a  complete  certainty  of  the  house's 
benevolence  before  you  can  wander  through  the  state- 
rooms after  nightfall  with  a  candle.  The  light  gleams 
on  the  dull  gilding  of  furniture  and  into  the  misty 

14 


THE  HOUSE 

depths  of  mirrors,  and  startles  up  a  sudden  face  out 
of  the  gloom  ;  something  creaks  and  sighs  ;  the 
tapestry  sways,  and  the  figures  on  it  undulate  and  seem 
to  come  alive.  The  recesses  of  the  great  beds,  deep  in 
shadow,  might  be  inhabited,  and  you  would  not  know 
it  ;  eyes  might  watch  you,  unseen.  The  man  with  the 
candle  is  under  a  terrible  disadvantage  to  the  man  in 
the  dark. 

§  vii 

As  there  are  three  galleries  among  the  state-rooms,  so 
are  there  three  principal  bedrooms  :  the  King's,  the 
Venetian  Ambassador's,  and  the  Spangled  Room.  The  , 
King's  bedroom  is  the  only  vulgar  room  in  the  house. 
Not  that  the  furniture  put  there  for  the  reception  of 
James  the  First  is  vulgar  :  it  is  excessively  magnificent, 
the  canopy  of  the  immense  bed  reaching  almost  to  the 
ceiling,  decked  with  ostrich  feathers,  the  hangings  stiff 
with  gold  and  silver  thread,  the  coverlet  and  the  in- 
terior of  the  curtains  heavily  embroidered  with  a  design 
of  pomegranates  and  tiger-lilies  worked  in  silver  on  a 
coral  satin  ground,  the  royal  cipher  embossed  over  the 
pillows — all  this  is  very  magnificent,  but  not  vulgar. 
What  is  vulgar  is  the  set  of  furniture  made  entirely  in 
silver:  table,  hanging  mirror,  and  tripods — the  florid 
and  ostentatious  product  of  the  florid  Restoration.  There 
is  a  surprising  amount  of  silver  in  the  room  :  sconces, 
ginger-jars,  mirrors,  fire-dogs,  toilet-set,  rose-water 
sprinklers,  even  to  a  little  eye-bath,  all  of  silver,  but  these 
smaller  objects  have  not  the  blatancy  of  the  set  of  furni- 
ture. Charles  Sackville,  for  whom  it  was  made,  cannot 
have  known  when  he  had  had  enough  of  a  good  thing. 

It  is  almost  a  relief  to  go  from  here  to  the  Venetian 
Ambassador's    Bedroom.     Green    and    gold  ;     Bur- 

15  / 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

gundian  tapestry,  mediaeval  figures  walking  in  a 
garden  ;  a  rosy  Persian  rug — of  all  rooms  I  never  saw 
a  room  that  so  had  over  it  a  bloom  like  the  bloom  on  a 
bowl  of  grapes  and  figs.  I  cannot  keep  the  simile, 
which  may  convey  nothing  to  those  who  have  not 
seen  the  room,  out  of  my  mind.  Greens  and  pinks 
originally  bright,  now  dusted  and  tarnished  over.  It 
is  a  very  grave,  stately  room,  rather  melancholy  in 
spite  of  its  stateliness.  It  seems  to  miss  its  inhabitants 
more  than  do  any  of  the  other  rooms.  Perhaps  this 
is  because  the  bed  appears  to  be  designed  for  three  : 
it  is  of  enormous  breadth,  and  there  are  three  pillows 
in  a  row.  Presumably  this  is  what  the  Italians  call  a 
letto  matrimoniale, 

%  viii 

In  a  remote  corner  of  the  house  is  the  Chapel  of 
the  Archbishops,  small,  and  very  much  bejewelled. 
Tapestry,  oak,  and  stained-glass — the  chapel  smoulders 
with  colour.  It  is  greatly  improved  since  the  oak 
has  been  pickled  and  the  mustard-yellow  paint 
removed,  also  the  painted  myrtle-wreaths,  tied  with  a 
gilt  ribbon,  in  the  centre  of  each  panel,  with  which  the 
nineteenth  century  adorned  it,  when  it  was  considered 
'*  very  simple,  plain,  and  neat  in  its  appearance,  and 
well  adapted  for  family  worship."  The  hand  of  the 
nineteenth  century  fell  rather  heavily  on  the  chapel  : 
besides  painting  the  oak  yellow  and  the  ceiling  blue 
with  gold  stars,  it  erected  a  Gothic  screen  and  a  yellow 
organ  ;  but  fortunately  these  are  both  at  the  entrance, 
and  you  can  turn  your  back  on  them  and  look  down 
the  little  nave  to  the  altar  where  Mary  Queen  of  Scots' 
gifts  stand  under  the  Perpendicular  east  window.  All 
along  the  left-hand  wall  hangs  the  Gothic  tapestry — 

i6 


THE  HOUSE 

scenes  from  the  life  of  Christ,  the  figures,  ungainly 
enough,  trampling  on  an  edging  of  tall  irises  and 
lilies  exquisitely  designed  ;  and  "  Saint  Luke  in  his 
first  profession,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole  irreverently, 
"  holding  a  urinal."  There  used  to  be  other  tapestries 
in  the  house  ;  there  was  one  of  the  Seven  Deadly 
Sins  set,  woven  with  gold  threads,  and  there  was 
another  series,  very  early,  representing  the  Flood  and 
the  two-by-two  procession  of  the  animals  going  into 
a  weather-boarded  Ark  ;  but  these,  alas,  had  to  be 
sold,  and  are  now  in  America. 

The  chapel  looks  strange  and  lovely  during  a  mid- 
night thunderstorm  :  the  lightning  flashes  through  the 
stone  ogives  of  the  east  window,  and  one  gets  a  queer 
efi^ect,  unreal  like  colour  photography,  of  the  colours 
lit  up  by  that  unfamiliar  means.  A  flight  of  little 
private  steps  leads  out  of  my  bedroom  straight  into  the 
Family  Pew  ;  so  I  dare  to  say  that  there  are  few  aspects 
under  which  I  have  not  seen  the  chapel  ;  and  as  a  child 
I  used  to  "  take  sanctuary  "  there  when  I  had  been 
naughty  :  that  is  to  say,  fairly  often.  They  never 
found  me,  sulking  inside  the  pulpit. 

§  ix 

There  would,  of  course,  be  many  other  aspects  from 
which  I  might  consider  Knole  ;  indeed,  if  I  allowed 
myself  full  licence  I  might  ramble  out  over  Kent  and 
down  into  Sussex,  to  Lewes,  Buckhurst,  and  Withy- 
ham,  out  into  the  fruit  country  and  the  hop  country, 
across  the  Weald,  over  Saxonbury,  and  to  Lewes 
among  the  Downs,  and  still  I  should  not  feel  guilty  of 
irrelevance.  Of  whatever  English  county  I  spoke, 
I  still  should  be  aware  of  the  relationship  between  the 

17  B 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

English  soil  and  that  most  English  house.  But  more 
especially  do  I  feel  this  concerning  Kent  and  Sussex, 
and  concerning  the  roads  over  which  the  Sackvilles 
travelled  so  constantly  between  estate  and  estate.  The 
place-names  in  their  letters  recur  through  the  cen- 
turies ;  the  paper  is  a  little  yellower  as  the  age  increases, 
the  ink  a  little  more  faded,  the  handwriting  a  little  less 
easily  decipherable,  but  still  the  gist  is  always  the  same: 
"  I  go  to-morrow  into  Kent,"  "  I  quit  Buckhurst  for 
Knole,"  "  my  Lord  rode  to  Lewes  with  a  great  com- 
pany," "  we  came  to  Knole  by  coach  at  midnight." 
The  whole  district  is  littered  with  their  associations, 
whether  a  village  whose  living  lay  in  their  gift,  or  a 
town  where  they  endowed  a  college,  or  a  wood  where 
they  hunted,  or  the  village  church  where  they  had 
themselves  buried.  Sussex,  in  fact,  was  their  cradle 
long  before  they  came  into  Kent.  Buckhurst,  which 
they  had  owned  since  the  twelfth  century,  w^as  at  one 
time  an  even  larger  house  than  Knole,  and  to  their  own 
vault  in  its  parish  church  of  Withyham  they  were 
invariably  brought  to  rest.  Their  trace  is  scattered 
over  the  two  counties.  But  this  was  not  my  only  mean- 
ing ;  I  had  in  mind  that  Knole  was  no  mere 
excrescence,  no  alien  fabrication,  no  startling  stranger 
seen  between  the  beeches  and  the  oaks.  No  other 
country  but  England  could  have  produced  it,  and  into 
no  other  country  would  it  settle  with  such  harmony 
and  such  quiet.  The  very  trees  have  not  been  banished 
from  the  courtyards,  but  spread  their  green  against  the 
stone.  From  the  top  of  a  tower  one  looks  down  upon 
the  acreage  of  roofs,  and  the  effect  is  less  that  of  a 
palace  than  of  a  jumbled  village  upon  the  hillside.  It 
is  not  an  incongruity  like  Blenheim  or  Chatsworth, 
foreign   to  the  spirit  of  England.    It  is,  rather,  the 

i8 


THE   HOUSE 

greater  relation  of  those  small  manor-houses  which  hide 
themselves  away  so  innumerably  among  the  counties, 
whether  built  of  the  grey  stone  of  south-western 
England,  or  the  brick  of  East  Anglia,  or  merely  tile- 
hung  or  plastered  like  the  cottages.  It  is  not  utterly 
different  from  any  of  these.  The  great  Palladian 
houses  of  the  eighteenth  century  are  in  England,  they 
are  not  of  England,  as  are  these  irregular  roofs,  this 
easy  straying  up  the  contours  of  the  hill,  these  cool 
coloured  walls,  these  calm  gables,  and  dark  windows 
mirroring  the  sun. 


19 


CHAPTER   II 
The  Garden  and  Park 

YOU  come  out  of  the  cool  shadowy  house  on  to 
the  warm  garden,  in  the  summer,  and  there  is  a 
scared  flutter  of  white  pigeons  up  to  the  roof  as 
you  open  the  door.  You  have  to  look  twice  before  you 
are  sure  whether  they  are  pigeons  or  magnolias.  The 
turf  is  of  the  most  brilliant  green ;  there  is  a  sound  of 
bees  in  the  limes  ;  the  heat  quivers  like  watered  gauze 
above  the  ridge  of  the  lawn.  The  garden  is  entirely 
enclosed  by  a  high  wall  of  rag,  very  massively  built, 
and  which  perhaps  dates  back  to  the  time  of  the  arch- 
bishops ;  its  presence,  I  think,  gives  a  curious  sense 
of  seclusion  and  quiet.  Inside  the  walls  are  herbaceous 
borders  on  either  side  of  long  green  walks,  and  little 
square  orchards  planted  with  very  old  apple-trees, 
under  which  grow  iris,  snapdragon,  larkspur,  pansies, 
and  such-like  humble  flowers.  There  are  also  interior 
walls,  with  rounded  archways  through  which  one 
catches  a  sight  of  the  house,  so  that  the  garden  is  con- 
veniently divided  up  into  sections  without  any  loss  of 
the  homogeneity  of  the  whole.  Half  of  the  garden, 
roughly  speaking,  is  formal;  the  other  half  is  wood- 
land, called  the  Wilderness,  mostly  of  beech  and  chest- 
nut, threaded  by  mossy  paths  which  in  spring  are  thick 
with  bluebells  and  daffodils. 

The  old  engravings  show  the  gardens  to  have  been, 
from  the  seventeenth  century  onwards,  very  much  the 
same  as  they  are  at  present.  There  are  a  few  minor 
variations,  but  as  the  early  engravers  were  not  very 
particular  as  to   accuracy   their   evidence  cannot  be 

20 


THE  GARDEN  AND   PARK 

accepted  as  wholly  reliable.  We  have,  besides  these 
engravings,  a  fairly  large  number  of  records  relating  to 
both  the  park  and  gardens.  The  earliest  of  these  that 
I  have  been  able  to  trace  is  dated  1456,  to  the  effect 
that  Archbishop  Bourchier  in  that  year  enclosed  the 
park — a  smaller  area  then  than  is  covered  by  it  now ; 
and  in  1468  there  is  a  bill,  "  Paid  for  making  1000 
palings  for  the  enclosure  of  the  Knole  land,  6s.  8^." 
But  the  first  accounts  for  the  garden  proper  appear  to 
date  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  (State  papers  of 
Henry  VIII),  when,  in  1543,  Sir  Richard  Longe  was 
paid  "  for  making  the  King's  garden  at  Knole."  Then 
there  is  a  gap  of  nearly  a  century,  save  for  the  references 
to  the  garden  in  Lady  Anne  Clifford's  Diary,  such  as 
"  25M  October,  1 6 17.  My  Lady  Lisle  and  my  Coz: 
Barbara  Sidney  [came  ?]  and  I  walked  with  them  all 
the  Wilderness  over.  They  saw  the  Child  and  much 
commended  her.  I  gave  them  some  marmalade  of 
quince,  for  about  this  time  I  made  much  of  it";  and 
her  constant  notes  of  how  she  took  her  prayer-book 
"up  to  the  standing  "  [which  I  take  to  be  what  we 
now  call  the  Duchess'  Seat],  or  of  how  she  picked 
cherries  in  the  garden  with  the  French  page,  and  he 
told  her  how  he  thought  that  all  the  men  in  the  house 
loved  her.  For  the  year  1692,  however,  there  are  some 
bills  among  the  Knole  papers,  such  as  "  Mr.  Olloynes, 
gardener,  wages  ^12  per  annum,"  and  some  bills  for 
seeds  and  roots,  "  Sweet  yerbs,  pawsley,  sorrill, 
spinnig,  spruts,  leeks,  sallet,  horse-rydish,  Jerusalem 
hawty-chorks,"  and  another  bill  for  seeds  for  ^2.  oj-.  ^J. 
Coming  to  the  eighteenth  century,  there  are  more 
detailed  accounts,  amongst  others  an  agreement  of  what 
was  expected  in  those  days  of  a  head  gardener  and  the 
remuneration  he  might  hope  to  receive  : 

21 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

14//^  Aug.^  1706.  Ric.  Baker,  Gardener  with  Lionel  Earl 
of  Dorset  and  Middlesex.  To  serve  his  Lordship  as 
Gardener  at  Knole  for  the  term  of  one  year  \  to  begin  in 
March  1706.  That  he  will  reserve  all  the  fruit  which  shall 
be  growing  in  the  garden  for  his  Lordship's  use.  That  he 
will  at  his  own  charge  during  the  said  term  preserve  all 
Trees  and  Greens  now  in  the  garden,  and  will  maintain  the 
trees  in  good  husbandlike  manner  by  pruning  and  trimming, 
dunging  and  marling  the  same  in  seasonable  times,  and  like- 
wise at  his  own  charge  will  provide  all  herbs  and  other 
things  convenient  for  my  Lord's  kitchen  there  when  in  season. 
He  undertakes  to  maintain  at  his  own  charge  all  such  walks 
as  are  now  in  ye  said  Garden,  by  mowing,  cleaning,  and 
rolling  the  same,  and  will  preserve  all  such  flowers  and  plants 
as  are  now  in  the  gardens,  and  that  he  will  be  at  all  the 
charges  of  repairing  all  the  glass  frames,  etc.  belonging  to 
the  Garden  Trade,  and  will  provide  for  the  present  use  of 
the  Gardens  50  loads  of  dung. 

In  return  for  this  service  he  was  to  be  allowed  ^30 
per  annum,  and 

rooms  and  conveniences  in  the  house  for  his  business,  and 
to  hand  all  such  dung,  etc.  as  shall  be  made  about  the  house 
for  the  use  of  ye  gardens,  and  that  he  may  have  the  privilege 
of  disposing  [for  his  own  use]  all  such  beans,  peas,  cabbages, 
and  other  kitchen  herbs  as  shall  be  spared,  over  and  above 
that  what  is  used  in  my  Lord's  kitchen. 

April  1%,  17 1 8.  I     s.  d. 

Planting  trees  in  new  Oak  Walk,  5  men,  8  to 
18  days  each  312,      4 

Planting  walnut  trees  round  the  Keeper's 
lodge,  3  men,  5  days  each  at  1/2  each  per 
day  o    17      6 

Cutting  Bows  in  the  yew  at  end  of  new  Oak 
Walk  o     2 


4 


November  11,  1723. 

Cutting  and  levelling  new  walk  in  ye  Wilder- 


22 


THE  GARDEN   AND   PARK 

ness  and  making  ye  mount  round  ye  Oak 

tree,  8  men,  5  to  1 1  days  each 

Alterations  made  in  the  Fruit  Walks,    16 

men,  from  14  to  43  days  each 

Cutting  10,600  turfs  at  %d.  per  100 

Planting  ye  quarry  in  the  Park 

10  May  Duke  Cherries  in  ye  garden 

6  peach  and  nectarine  trees  in  ye  garden 

2400  quick-set  for  ye  kitchen  garden 

1000  holly  for  ye  kitchen  garden 

Planting  2000  small  beeches  in  ye  park 

200  Pear  stocks 

30c  Crab  stocks 

200  Cherry  stocks 

500  Holly  stocks 

700  Hazel  stocks 

For  new  making  the  Mulberry  garden  and 

sowing  ye  front  walk  with  seed 

20  Gascon  Cherry  trees 

50  bushels  sweet  apples  for  cyder 

1  bushel  Buckwheat  for  ye  Pheasants 
10,000  seedling  beeches  for  my  Lady  Ger- 

maine  o   10     o 

December  1^^  i']i6. 

Getting  80  load  of  ice  and  putting  it  in  ye 

Ice  House  1^5     3 

June  15,  1728. 

Planting  160  Elms  in  field  which  was  Dr. 
Lambarde's  next  Tonbridge  road  and  sowing 
the  field  with  furze  seed  7     9     3 

Aprily  1730. 

1000  Asparagus  plants  from  Gravesend  100 

2  doz.  Apricots  020 
300  beeches  8ft.  high  i  ^5  ^ 
250  large  beeches  planted  in  ye  Park  3    ^*^     ° 

23 


I 

s. 

d. 

3 

10 

0 

23 

19 

10 

3 

10 

8 

6 

7 

0 

0 

6 

8 

0 

12 

0 

0 

12 

0 

0 

10 

0 

0 

18 

6 

0 

6 

0 

0 

3 

0 

0 

6 

0 

0 

5 

0 

I 

15 

0 

14 

12 

9 

0 

10 

0 

2 

10 

0 

0 

3 

6 

KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

It  is  not  very  clear  where  such  a  large  number  of 
fruit  trees  were  to  be  used,  but  on  an  engraving  of 
about  1720  I  find  a  wall  extending  right  across  the 
garden  to  the  two  stone  pillars  which,  surmounted  by 
carved  stone  urns,  still  remain,  this  wall  being  planted 
with  fruit  trees,  so  I  should  think  it  very  probable  that 
this  would  account  for  it. 

In  1777  new  hot-houses  and  "  Pineries  "  were  built, 
and  £iJS  P^i^  ^^^  **  ^^^  hot-houses  full  stocked  with 
pine  apples  and  plants." 

Surrounding  the  house  and  gardens  lies  the  park, 
with  its  valleys,  hills,  and  woods,  and  its  short  brown 
turf  closely  bitten  by  deer  and  rabbits.  Its  beeches  and 
bracken,  its  glades  and  valleys,  greatly  excited  the 
admiration  of  Mrs.  Ann  Radcliffe,  who  visited  it  in  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  she  wrote 
with  enthusiasm  of  shade  rising  above  shade  with 
amazing  and  magnificent  grandeur,  and  of  one  beech  in 
particular  spreading  "itslightyet  umbrageous  fan"  over 
a  seat  placed  round  the  bole.  With  all  its  grandeur  and 
luxuriance,  she  said,  there  was  nothing  about  this  beech 
heavy  or  formal  ;  it  was  airy,  though  vast  and  majestic, 
and  suggested  an  idea  at  once  of  the  strength  and  fire 
of  a  hero.  She  would  call  a  beech  tree,  she  added,  and 
this  beech  above  every  other,  the  hero  of  the  forest,  as 
the  oak  was  called  the  king. 

As  I  have  said,  the  park  was  first  enclosed  by 
Bourchier  in  1456,  the  year  in  which  he  bought  Knole 
on  the  30th  of  June.  In  the  muniments  at  Lambeth 
are  a  number  of  papers  relating  to  the  expenses  of  this 
great  builder,  and  there   is  the  interesting  fact  that 

24 


THE  GARDEN  AND   PARK 

glass-making  was  carried  on  in  the  park,  and  I  only 
wish  that  more  detailed  accounts  existed  of  this 
industry,  which,  thanks  to  the  Huguenots,  had  been 
pretty  widely  introduced  into  the  South  of  England. 
I  should  like  to  know  exactly  where  their  glass-foundry 
was,  and  whether  they  made  use  of  the  sand  on  the 
portion  known  as  the  Furze-field,  now  a  rabbit  warren; 
and  I  should  also  very  much  like  to  know  whether — as 
seems  probable — they  supplied  any  of  the  glass  for  the 
windows  in  the  house. 

It  would  appear  that  the  park,  now  entirely  under 
grass,  was  once  ploughland,  for  there  is  at  Knole  a  deed 
of  the  time  of  Richard  Sackville,  fifth  Earl  of  Dorset — 
that  is  to  say,  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century — 
which  accords  to  four  farmers  "  the  liberty  to  plough 
anywhere  in  the  Park  except  in  the  plain  set  out  by  my 
Lord  and  the  ground  in  front  of  the  house,  and  to  take 
three  crops,  and  it  is  agreed  that  one-third  of  each 
crop  after  it  is  severed  from  the  ground  shall  be  taken 
and  carried  away  by  my  Lord  for  his  own  use.  The 
third  year,  the  farmers  to  sow  the  ground  with  grass 
seed  if  my  Lord  desires  it,  and  they  are  to  be  at  the 
charge  of  the  seed,  the  tillage,  and  the  harvest."  Later 
on,  in  the  time  of  Charles  I,  hops  were  grown,  not  only 
around  the  park,  but  also  in  it.  Women  employed  in 
picking  the  hops  were  paid  5^.  a  day,  but  for  cleaning 
and  weeding  the  ground  they  only  received  3^.  At 
this  time  also  cattle  were  fed  in  the  park  during  the 
summer,  and  belonging  to  the  same  date  (about  1628) 
are  the  bills  for  "  Moles  caught,  ij^.  each  " ;  "  Mow- 
ing the  meadows,"  at  the  rate  of  ij-.  6^.  per  acre  ; 
"  Making  hay,"  also  at  is.  bd.  per  acre  ;  "  Carriage  of 
hay  from  the  meadows  to  Knole  barn,"  \s.  4^.  per 
load  ;    "  one  hay  fork  and    2  hay  forks  together," 

25 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

IS.  8^.  For  *'  hunting  conies  by  night  and  ferret  by 
day  "  4^.  was  paid  ;  the  expenses  involved  by  the 
"conies"  for  one  year  were  exactly  ;^io,  which 
included  ^5  5^.,  a  year's  wages  for  the  "  wariner  " ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  this  was  money  well  expended, 
for  the  revenue  from  "  conies  sold  "  covers  no  less 
than  a  fifth  part  of  the  year's  total  income.  The 
**  wariner,"  although  his  ^5  5^.  a  year  hardly  seems 
excessive,  did  better  than  the  **  wood-looker,"  who,  for 
his  woodreeveship  for  a  year,  was  paid  only  £2. 

The  accounts  of  how  and  when  the  various  outlying 
portions  of  the  park  were  taken  in  can  only  be  of  local 
interest,  and  I  do  not  therefore  propose  to  go  into 
them.  They  were  mostly  bought  by  John  Frederick, 
the  third  duke,  and  by  Lord  Whitworth,  who  had 
married  John  Frederick's  widow.  The  ruins  round  the 
queer  little  sham  Gothic  house  called  the  Bird  House 
— which  always  frightened  me  as  a  child  because  I 
thought  it  looked  like  the  witch's  house  in  Hansel  and 
Gretel,  tucked  away  in  its  hollow,  with  its  pointed 
gables — were  built  for  John  Frederick's  grandfather 
about  1 76 1,  by  one  Captain  Robert  Smith,  who  had 
fought  at  Minden  under  Lord  George  Sackville,  of 
disastrous  notoriety,  and  who  lived  for  some  time  at 
Knole,  a  parasite  upon  the  house  ;  they  apparently 
purport  to  be  the  remains  of  some  vast  house,  in 
defiance  of  the  fact  that  no  upper  storey  or  roof  of  pro- 
portionate dimensions  could  ever  possibly  have  rested 
upon  the  flimsy  structure  of  flint  and  rubble  which 
constitute  the  ruins.  They,  together  with  the  Bird 
House,  form  an  amusing  group  of  the  whims  and 
vanities  of  two  difl^erent  ages.  But,  to  go  back  to  the 
park,  I  conclude  with  the  following  letter,  which  is 
among  the  papers  at  Knole  : 

26 


A  GATEWAY  INTO  THE  GARDEN 


THE  GARDEN  AND   PARK 

To  his  Grace  the  duke  of  Dorset. 
My  Lord, 

I  Elizabeth  Hills  sister  and  executor  of  Mrs.  Anne 
Hills  deceased  of  Under  River  in  the  Parish  of  Seal  and 
whose  corpse  is  to  be  interred  in  the  Parish  Church  of  Seal  : 
but  the  High  Road  leading  thereto  by  Godden  Green  being 
very  bad  and  unsafe  for  carriages  :  I  beg  leave  of  yr  Grace 
to  permit  the  proper  attendants  to  pass  with  the  corpse,  in  a 
hearse  with  the  coaches  in  attendance  through  Knole  Park  : 
entering  the  same  at  Faulke  [sic]  Common  Gate  and  going 
out  at  the  gate  at  Lock's  Bottom  :   and  you'll  oblige 

Your  Grace's  most  obedient  serv* 

UNDER   RIVER,  ELIZA  HILLS. 

1 8  Oct.,  178 1. 

§  iii 

|So  much,  then,  for  the  setting;  but  it  is  no  mere 
empty  scene.  The  house,  with  its  exits  and  entrances, 
its  properties  of  furniture  and  necessities,  its  dressing- 
tables,  its  warming-pans,  and  its  tiny  silver  eye-bath  still 
standing  between  the  hair-brushes — the  house  demands 
its  population.  Whose  were  the  hands  that  have,  by  the 
constant  light  running  of  their  fingers,  polished  thepaint 
from  the  banisters }  Whose  were  the  feet  that  have  worn 
down  the  flags  of  the  hall  and  the  stone  passages  .?  What 
child  rode  upon  the  ungainly  rocking-horse .?  What 
young  men  exercised  their  muscles  on  the  ropes  of  the 
great  dumb-bell .?  Who  were  the  men  and  women  that, 
after  a  day's  riding  or  stitching,  lay  awake  in  the  deep 
beds,  idly  watching  between  the  curtains  the  play  of  the 
firelight,  and  the  little  round  yellow  discs  cast  upon  walls 
and  ceiling  through  the  perforations  of  the  tin  canisters 
standing  on  the  floor,  containing  the  rush-lights  .? 

Thus  the  house  wakes  into  a  whispering  life,  and  we 
resurrect  the  Sackvilles. 

27 


CHAPTER   III 

Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth 

THOMAS    SACKVILLE 

1st 

Earl   of  Dorset 

§i 

SUCH  interest  as  the  Sackvilles  have  lies,  I  think, 
in  their  being  so  representative.  From  genera- 
tion to  generation  they  might  stand,  fully- 
equipped,  as  portraits  from  English  history.  Unless 
they  are  to  be  considered  in  this  light  they  lose  their 
purport  ;  they  merely  share,  as  Byron  wrote  to  one  of 
their  number  : 

....  with  titled  crowds  the  common  lot^ 

In  life  just  gazed  at^  in  the  grave  forgot  .  .  . 

The  mouldering  'scutcheon^  or  the  herald's  roll^ 

That  well-emblazoned  hut  neglected  scroll^ 

Where  lords^  unhonoured^  in  the  tomb  may  find 

One  spoty  to  leave  a  worthless  name  behind: 

There  sleeps  unnoticed  as  the  gloomy  vaults 

That  veil  their  dust,  their  follies,  and  their  faults : 

A  race  with  old  armorial  lists  overspread 

In  records  destined  never  to  be  read. 

But  let  them  stand  each  as  the  prototype  of  his  age, 
and  at  the  same  time  as  a  link  to  carry  on,  not  only  the 
tradition  but  also  the  heredity  of  his  race,  and  they 
immediately  acquire  a  significance,  a  unity.  You  have 
first  the  grave  Elizabethan,  with  the  long,  rather 
melancholy  face,  emerging  from  the  oval  frame  above 
the  black  clothes  and  the  white  wand  of  office  ;  you 
perceive  all  his  severe  integrity;  you  understand  the 
intimidating  austerity  of  the  contribution  he  made  to 

28 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

English  letters  J  Undoubtedly  a  fine  old  man.  You 
come  down  to  his  grandson  :  he  is  the  Cavalier  by 
Vandyck  hanging  in  the  hall,  hand  on  hip,  his  flame- 
coloured  doublet  slashed  across  by  the  blue  of  the 
Garter  ;  this  is  the  man  who  raised  a  troop  of  horse  off 
his  own  estates  and  vowed  never  to  cross  the  threshold 
of  his  house  into  an  England  governed  by  the  mur- 
derers of  the  King.  You  have  next  the  florid,  magni- 
ficent Charles,  the  fruit  of  the  Restoration,  poet,  and 
patron  of  poets,  prodigal,  jovial,  and  licentious ;  you  have 
him  full-length,  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  his  Garter 
robes  and  his  enormous  wig,  his  foot  and  fine  calf  well 
thrust  forward ;  you  have  him  less  pompous  and  more 
intimate,  wrapped  in  a  dressing-gown  of  figured  silk,  the 
wig  replaced  by  an  Hogarthian  turban ;  but  it  is  still  the 
same  coarse  face,  with  the  heavy  jowl  and  the  twinkling 
eyes,  the  crony  of  Rochester  and  Sedley,  the  patron  and 
hostof  Pope  and  Dryden,  Prior  and  Killigrew.  You  come 
down  to  the  eighteenth  century.  You  have  on  Gains- 
borough's canvas  the  beautiful,  sensitive  face  of  the  gay 
and  fickle  duke,  spoilt,  feared,  and  propitiated  by 
the  women  of  London  and  Paris,  the  reputed  lover 
of  Marie  Antoinette.  You  have  his  son,  too  fair  and 
pretty  a  boy,  the  friend  of  Byron,  killed  in  the  hunt- 
ing-field at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  the  last  direct  male 
of  a  race  too  prodigal,  too  amorous,  too  weak,  too 
indolent,  and  too  melancholy. 

The  Sackvilles  are  supposed  to  have  gone  into 
Normandy  in  the  ninth  century  with  Rollo  the  Dane, 
and  to  have  settled  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dieppe, 
in  a  small  town  called  Salcavilla,  from  which,  obviously, 

29 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

they  derived  their  name.  Much  as  I  relish  the  sug- 
gestion of  this  Norse  origin,  I  am  bound  to  add  that 
the  first  of  whom  there  is  any  authentic  record  is 
Herbrand  de  Sackville,  contemporary  with  WilHam 
the  Conqueror,  whom  he  accompanied  to  England. 
Descending  from  him  is  a  long  monotonous  list  of  Sir 
Jordans,  Sir  Andrews,  Sir  Edwards,  Sir  Richards, 
carrying  us  through  the  Crusades,  the  French  wars, 
and  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  but  none  of  whom  has  the 
slightest  interest  until  we  get  to  Sir  Richard  Sackville, 
temp.  Henry  VIII-Elizabeth — from  his  wealth  called 
Sackfill  or  Fillsack,  though  not,  it  appears,  *'  either 
griping  or  penurious,"  a  man  of  some  note,  and  thus 
qualified  by  Roger  Ascham:  "  That  worthy  gentle- 
man, that  earnest  favourer  and  furtherer  of  God's  true 
religion  ;  that  faithful  servitor  to  his  prince  and 
country  ;  a  lover  of  learning  and  all  learned  men  ; 
wise  in  all  doings  ;  courteous  to  all  persons,  showing 
spite  to  none,  doing  good  to  many;  and, as  I  well  found, 
to  me  so  fast  a  friend  as  I  never  lost  the  like  before"; 
and  in  this  same  connection  I  may  quote  further  from 
Ascham's  preface  to  The  Scholemaster,  in  which  he 
records  a  conversation  which  took  place  in  1593 
between  himself  and  Sir  Richard  Sackville,  when 
dining  with  Sir  William  Cecil  :  Sir  Richard,  after 
complaining  of  his  own  education  by  a  bad  school- 
master, said,  "  But  seeing  it  is  but  in  vain  to  lament 
things  past,  and  also  wisdom  to  look  to  things  to  come, 
surely,  God  wilhng  (if  God  lend  me  life),  I  will  make 
this  my  mishap  some  occasion  of  good  hap  to  little 
Robert  Sackville,  my  son's  son  ;  for  whose  bringing 
up  I  would  gladly,  if  so  please  you,  use  specially  your 
good  advice."  ...  "I  wish  also,"  says  Ascham,  "with 
all  my  heart,  that  young  Mr.  Robert  Sackville  may 

30 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

take  that  fruit  of  this  labour  that  his  worthy  grand- 
father purposed  he  should  have  done.  And  if  any  other 
do  take  profit  or  pleasure  hereby,  they  have  cause  to 
thank  Mr.  Robert  Sackville,  for  whom  specially  this 
my  Scholemaster  was  provided." 

This  Sir  Richard  was  the  founder  of  the  family 
fortune,  which  was  to  be  increased  by  his  son  and 
squandered  after  that  by  nearly  all  his  descendants  in 
succession.  It  was  he  who  bought,  in  i  564,  for  the  sum 
of  £6^1  5J-.  loj^.,  "the  whole  of  the  land  lying 
between  Bridewell  and  Water  Lane  from  Fleet  Street 
to  the  Thames."  This  property,  now  of  course  of 
almost  fabulous  value,  included  the  house  then  known 
as  Salisbury  House,  having  belonged  to  the  see  of 
Salisbury,  which  presently  became  Dorset  House  in 
1603,  and  presently  again  was  divided  into  Great 
Dorset  House  and  Little  Dorset  House,  as  the  London 
house  of  the  Sackvilles.  A  wall  enclosed  house  and 
gardens  from  the  existing  line  of  Salisbury  Court 
south  to  the  river,  and  shops  and  tenements  in  and  near 
Fleet  Street  from  St.  Bride's  to  Water  Lane  (Whitefriars 
Street).  These  were  not  the  only  London  possessions 
of  the  Sackvilles.  Later  on  they  overflowed  into  the 
Strand,  and  another  Dorset  House  sprang  up,  on  the 
site  of  the  present  Treasury  in  Whitehall,  to  take  the  place 
of  the  older  house  in  Salisbury  Court,  which  had  been 
destroyed  in  the  Great  Fire.  It  is  idle  and  exasperating 
to  speculate  on  the  modern  value  of  these  City  estates. 

Sir  Richard  Sackville  died  in  1566,  when  his  son 
Thomas  was  already  thirty  years  of  age.  Very  little  is 
known  about  Thomas'  early  life  ;  we  only  know  that 
he  went  for  a  short  time  to  Oxford  (Hertford),  and 
subsequently  to  the  Inner  Temple.  While  at  Oxford 
he  attracted  some  attention  as  a  poet  and  writer  of 

31 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

sonnets,  but  I  have  only  been  able  to  find  one  of  these 
early  sonnets,  written  for  Hoby's  translation  of  the 
Courtier  of  Count  Baldessar  Castillo  (published  in 
1 561),  and  which  I  quote,  not  so  much  for  its  worth  as 
for  its  interest  as  a  little-known  work  from  the  pen  of 
one  who,  as  the  author  of  our  earliest  tragedy,  has  a 
certain  renown  :  * 

These  royal  Kings,  that  rear  up  to  the  sky 

Their  palace  tops,  and  deck  them  all  with  gold : 
With  rare  and  curious  works  they  feed  the  eye. 

And  show  what  riches  here  great  princes  hold. 
A  rarer  work,  and  richer  far  tn  worth, 

Castilio's  hand presenteth  here  to  thee: 
No  proud  nor  golden  court  doth  he  set  forth 

But  what  in  court  a  courtier  ought  to  be. 
The  prince  he  raiseth  huge  and  mighty  walls^ 

Castilio  frames  a  wight  of  noble  fame  : 
The  King  with  gorgeous  tissue  dads  his  halls. 

The  court  with  golden  virtue  decks  the  same 
Whose  passing  skill,  lo,  Hobys  pen  displays 

To  Britain  folk  a  work  of  worthy  praise. 

But  for  the  rest  concerning  these  early  poems  one  must 
take  hiscontemporary  Jasper  Heywood'seulogy  on  trust: 

There  Sackville's  sonnets  sweetly  sauced 
And featly  fined  be. 

It  seems  that  Sackville's  works  were  all  written  in  the 
first  half  of  his  life,  and  that  later  on,  as  honours  came 
to  him,  he  altogether  abandoned  what  might  have 
been  a  first-rate  literary  career  for  a  second-rate 
political  one — more's  the  pity.  "  A  born  poet,"  says 
Mr.  Gosse,  "  diverted  from  poetry  by  the  pursuits 
of  statesmanship."  He  is  a  very  good  instance  of 
the  disadvantage  of  fine  birth  to  a  poet.  But  for  the 
fact  that  he  was  born  the  Queen's  cousin,  through  the 

32 


Z       "m 


D  S 

h  H 

CO  ao 

0^  ^    T 

<  ■§  s^ 

a. 

< 


I  Q 


Z  -£    "« 

O  «    - 
2  3^ 


Z  « 


Q  «> 
2  I 

<■! 
it 

O   g 

z  ^ 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

Boleyns,  and  the  son  of  a  father  holding  various  dis- 
tinguished offices,  he  might  never  have  entered  a 
poHtical  arena  where  he  was  destined  to  have  as  com- 
petitors such  statesmen  as  Burleigh,  and  such  favourites 
as  Leicester  and  Essex.  Amongst  his  contemporary 
poets,  Surrey  and  Wyatt  both  died  while  Sackville  was 
still  a  child  ;  when  Spenser  was  born,  Sackville  was 
already  sixteen  ;  when  Sidney  was  born,  he  was 
eighteen  ;  when  Shakespeare  was  born,  he  was  a  full- 
grown  man  of  twenty-eight.  He  had  thus  the  good 
fortune  to  be  born  at  a  time  when  English  poets  of 
much  standing  were  rare,  an  opportunity  of  which  he 
might  have  taken  greater  advantage  had  not  the 
accident  of  his  birth  persuaded  him  to  abandon  poetry 
for  more  serious  things  as  the  dilettantism  of  his  youth. 
For  he  was  comparatively  young  when  he  wrote  both 
Gorboduc  and  the  Induction  to  the  Mirror  j or  Magis- 
trates, Gorboduc  was  first  performed  by  the  gentlemen 
of  the  Inner  Temple  before  the  Queen  in  1 561,  when 
Sackville  was  twenty-five,  and  the  Induction  was  first 
published  in  1563,  when  he  was  twenty-seven  ;  but 
already  in  or  about  1557,  when  he  was  only  just  over 
twenty,  he  had  composed  the  plan  for  the  whole  of  the 
Mirror  j  or  Magistrates^  intending  to  write  it  himself, 
although  subsequently  from  want  of  leisure  he  left  the 
composition  of  all  but  the  induction  or  introduction, 
and  the  Complaint  oj  Henry ^  Duke  of  Buckingham^  to 
others. 

By  the  age  of  twenty-one,  however,  responsibilities 
were  already  upon  him.  He  was  married ;  and  he  was 
a  member  of  Parliament,  not  merely  once  but  twice 
over,  as  appears  from  the  journals  of  the  House  of 
Commons :  *'  For  that  Thomas  Sackville,  Esq.,  is 
returned  for  the  County  of  Westmoreland,  and  also  for 

22>  c 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

the  Borough  of  East  Grinstead  in  Sussex,  and  doth 
personally  appear  for  Westmoreland,  it  is  required  by 
this  House  that  another  person  be  returned  for  the  said 
borough."  How  this  double  election  can  have  come 
about  I  cannot  explain.  It  seems  to  have  done  him  no 
harm  in  his  parliamentary  career  ;  not  only  was  he 
returned  member  for  Aylesbury  in  1563,  but  he  took 
an  active  part  in  introducing  bills,  etc.  About  this  time 
he  went  to  travel  in  France  and  Italy,  where  for  some 
mysterious  reason  he  got  himself  thrown  into  prison ; 
the  reason  was  probably  pecuniary,  for  we  are  told  that 
he  was  "  of  the  height  of  spirit  inherent  in  his  house," 
and  lived  too  magnificently  for  his  means ;  so  I  think 
the  assumption  is  in  favour  of  his  having  got  tem- 
porarily into  debt.  If,  indeed,  he  shared  in  any  measure 
the  tastes  of  his  descendants,  nothing  is  more  likely. 
Back  in  England  again,  the  successes  of  his  career 
rushed  upon  him.  His  father  was  just  dead;  he  was 
the  head  of  his  family;  he  inherited  its  wealth  and 
estates  ;  he  was  at  the  propitious  age  of  thirty ;  he  was 
related  to  the  Queen  ;  he  was  marked  out  to  prosper. 
Within  the  next  thirty  years  or  so  he  was,  successively, 
knighted  and  created  Lord  Buckhurst  of  Buckhurst, 
in  the  county  of  Sussex  ;  given  the  house  and  lands 
of  Knole  by  the  Queen,  that  she  might  have  him  near 
her  court  and  councils  ;  sent  to  France  and  the 
Netherlands  as  special  ambassador  from  Elizabeth  ; 
made  a  Knight  of  the  Garter  ;  Chancellor  of  Oxford, 
where  he  sumptuously  entertained  the  Queen  ;  made 
Lord  High  Treasurer  of  England  in  1599  >  ^ig^^ 
Steward  of  England  at  the  trial  of  Essex,  where  he  sat 
in  state  under  a  canopy  and  pronounced  sentence  and 
an  exhortation,  says  Bacon,  *'  with  gravity  and 
solemnity."    By  this  time,  I  imagine,  he  had  in  very 

34 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

truth  become  the  grave  and  solemn  personage  one  sees 
in  all  his  portraits — not  that  his  mind,  even  in  early 
youth,  can  have  been  otherwise  than  grave  and  solemn 
if  at  the  age  of  twenty  he  had  been  capable  of  imagining 
a  vast  poem  on  so  dreary  and  Dantesque  a  plan  as  the 
Mirror  for  Magistrates,  devised,  says  Morley  in  his 
English  Literature,  "  to  moralise  those  incidents  of 
English  history  which  warn  the  powerful  of  the  un- 
steadiness of  fortune  by  showing  them,  as  in  a  mirror, 
that  '  who  reckless  rules,  right  soon  may  hap  to  rue.'  " 
Also,  from  a  letter  written  by  Lord  Buckhurst  to 
Lord  Walsingham,  it  is  clear  that  he  had  no  sympathy 
with  ostentation,  but  only  with  honest  worth:  "And, 
Sir,  I  beseech  you  send  over  as  few  Court  captains  as 
may  be  ;  but  that  they  may  rather  be  furnished  with 
captains  here  [in  the  Low  Countries],  such  as  by  their 
worthiness  and  long  service  do  merit  it,  and  do  further 
seek  to  shine  in  the  field  with  virtue  and  valiance 
against  the  enemy  than  with  gold  lace  and  gay  gar- 
ments in  Court  at  home."  In  1586  Lord  Buckhurst 
was  one  of  the  forty  appointed  on  the  commission  for 
the  trial  of  Mary  Stuart,  and  although  his  name  is  not 
amongst  those  who  proceeded  to  Fotheringay,  nor 
later  in  the  Star  Chamber  at  Westminster  when  she 
was  condemned  to  death,  yet  he  was  sent  to  announce 
the  sentence  to  death,  and  received  from  her  in  recog- 
nition of  his  tact  and  gentleness  in  conveying  this  news 
the  triptych  and  carved  group  of  the  Procession  to 
Calvary  now  on  the  altar  in  the  chapel  at  Knole. 

He  was,  in  fact,  absent  from  none  of  the  councils  of 
the  nation,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  discharged  his 
duties  with  all  seriousness  and  honesty.  Poetry — a 
frivolous  pursuit — had  long  since  been  left  behind. 
The  poet  had  become  the  statesman.    Nevertheless 

2>S 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

there  were  times  when  his  very  integrity  was  the 
cause  of  bringing  him  into  disfavour  with  the  intolerant 
mistress  he  served,  notably  on  one  occasion  when  he 
refused  to  take  the  part  of  Leicester  and  was  indig- 
nantly confined  to  his  house  for  nine  or  ten  months  by 
Royal  mandate.  And  there  was  another  occasion, 
amusing  as  showing  the  extreme  simplicity  in  which 
even  a  man  like  Lord  Buckhurst,  who  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  lavish  living  in  his  own  day,  conducted  his  daily 
life.  Buckhurst,  then  being  at  the  royal  palace  of 
Shene,  was  desired  by  the  Queen  to  entertain  Odet  de 
Coligny,  Cardinal  of  Chatillon,  and  did  so,  but  with 
the  result  made  clear  in  the  following  letter,  of  which 
I  give  extracts  : 

To  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lords  of  her  Majesty's  Privy 
Council  he  this  delivered. 

My  duty  to  your  Lordships  most  humbly  remembered. 

Returning  yesterday  to  Shene,  I  received  as  from  your 
Lordships  how  her  highness  stood  greatly  displeased  with 
me,  for  that  I  had  not  in  better  sort  entertained  the  Cardinal. 

He  goes  on  to  speak  of  his  *'  great  grief"  and  his 
*'  sorrowful  heart,"  especially,  he  says,  *'  being  to  her 
Majesty  as  I  am,"  and  proceeds  with  the  attempt  to 
justify  himself  for  his  supposed  niggardliness  : 

I  brought  them  in  to  every  part  of  the  house  that  I 
possessed,  and  showed  them  all  such  stuff  and  furniture  as 
I  had.  And  where  they  required  plate  of  me,  I  told  them  as 
troth  is,  that  I  had  no  plate  at  all.  Such  glass  vessel  as  I  had 
I  offered  them,  which  they  thought  too  base  ;  for  napery 
I  could  not  satisfy  their  turn,  for  they  desired  damask  work 
for  a  long  table,  and  I  had  none  other  but  plain  linen  for  a 
square  table.  The  table  whereon  I  dine  myself  I  offered 
them,  and  for  that  it  was  a  square  table  they  refused  it. 
One  only  tester  and  bedstead  not  occupied  I  had,  and  those 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

I  delivered  for  the  Cardinal  himself,  and  when  we  could  not 
by  any  means  in  so  short  a  time  procure  another  bedstead 
for  the  bishop,  I  assigned  them  the  bedstead  on  which  my 
wife's  waiting  women  did  lie,  and  laid  them  on  the  ground. 
Mine  own  basin  and  ewer  I  lent  to  the  Cardinal  and  wanted 
myself.  So  did  I  the  candlesticks  for  mine  own  table,  with 
divers  drinking  glasses,  small  cushions,  small  pots  for  the 
kitchen,  and  sundry  other  such  like  trifles,  although  indeed 
I  had  no  greater  store  of  them  than  I  presently  occupied  ; 
and  albeit  this  be  not  worthy  the  writing,  yet  mistrusting 
lest  the  misorder  of  some  others  in  denying  of  such  like  kind 
of  stuff  not  occupied  by  themselves,  have  been  percase 
informed  as  towards  me,  I  have  thought  good  not  to  omit  it. 
Long  tables,  forms,  brass  for  the  kitchen,  and  all  such 
necessaries  as  could  not  be  furnished  by  me,  we  took  order 
to  provide  in  the  town  ;  hangings  and  beds  we  received 
from  the  yeoman  of  the  wardrobe  at  Richmond,  and  when 
we  saw  that  napery  and  sheets  could  nowhere  here  be  had, 
I  sent  word  thereof  to  the  officers  at  the  Court,  by  which 
means  we  received  from  my  lord  of  Leicester  2  pair  of  fine 
sheets  for  the  Cardinal,  and  from  my  lord  Chamberlain  one 
pair  of  fine  for  the  bishop,  with  2  other  coarser  pair,  and 
order  beside  for  lo  pair  more  from  London. 

At  which  time  also  because  I  would  be  sure  your  Lord- 
ships should  be  ascertained  of  the  simpleness  and  scarcity 
of  such  stuff  as  I  had  here,  I  sent  a  man  of  mine  to  the  Court, 
specially  to  declare  to  your  Lordships  that  for  plate,  damask, 
napery  and  fine  sheets,  I  had  none  at  all  and  for  the  rest 
of  my  stuff  neither  was  it  such  as  with  honour  might  furnish 
such  a  personage,  nor  yet  had  I  any  greater  store  thereof  than 
I  presently  occupied,  and  he  brought  me  this  answer  again 
from  your  Lordships  that  if  I  had  it  not  I  could  not  lend  it. 
And  yet  all  things  being  thus  provided  for,  and  the  diet  for 
his  Lordship  being  also  prepared,  I  sent  word  thereof  to 
Mr.  Kingesmele  and  thereupon  the  next  day  in  the  morning 
about  nine  of  the  clock  the  Cardinal  came  to  Shene  where  I 
met  and  received  him  almost  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the 
house,  and  when  I  had  first  brought  the  Cardinal  to  his 
lodging,  and  after  the  bishop  to  his,  I  thought  good  there  to 
leave  them  to  their  repose.  Thus  having  accommodated  his 

37 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Lordship  as  well  as  might  be  with  so  short  a  warning,  I 
thought  myself  to  have  fully  performed  the  meaning  of  your 
Lordships'  letters  unto  me,  and  because  I  had  tidings  the 
day  before  that  a  house  of  mine  in  the  country  by  sudden 
chance  was  burned  ...  I  took  horse  and  rode  the  same 
night  towards  those  places,  where  I  found  so  much  of  my 
house  burned  as  200  marks  will  not  repair  .  .  . 

This  is  not  at  all  in  accordance  with  his  reputation 
for  hospitality: 

He  kept  house  for  forty  and  two  years  in  an  honourable 
proportion.  For  thirty  years  of  these  his  family  consisted  of 
little  less,  in  one  place  or  another,  than  two  hundred  persons. 
But  for  more  than  twenty  years,  besides  workmen  and  other 
hired,  his  number  at  the  least  hath  been  two  hundred  and 
twenty  daily,  as  appeared  upon  check-role.  A  very  rare 
example  in  this  present  age  of  ours,  when  housekeeping  is 
so  decayed. 

I  think  that  this  reputation,  and  the  enormous  sums 
which  he  spent  upon  the  enlargement  and  beautifying 
of  Knole,  make  all  the  more  remarkable  the  statements 
in  the  foregoing  letter:  that  he  had  neither  napery, 
plate,  nor  sheets,  and  that  in  order  to  provide  his  guest 
with  a  basin  and  ewer  he  was  obliged  to  do  without  them 
himself.  It  is  apparent  also  from  his  will  that  he 
indulged  himself  in  the  luxury  of  various  musicians, 
**  some  for  the  voice  and  some  for  the  instrument, 
whom  I  have  found  to  be  honest  in  their  behaviour 
and  skilful  in  their  profession,  and  who  had  often  given 
me  after  the  labour  and  painful  travels  of  the  day 
much  recreation  and  contatation  with  their  delightful 
harmony."  "  Musicians,"  it  was  said,  "  the  most 
curious  he  could  have,"  so  that  in  these  extravagances 
he  was  not  parsimonious,  although  he  disregarded  the 
common  comforts  of  life. 

In  June  1566  Queen  Elizabeth  had  presented  him 

38 


♦ 


■"^  ''WW 


LEAD  PIPE-HEADS 
Put  up  by  Thomas  Sackville  in  i6o^ 

Figs.  I  to  4,  Stone  Court.     Fig.  5,  Over  King's  Bedroom  Window.     Figs.  6  and  7,  South  Front 
Fig.  8,  Stone  Court.      Fig.  9,  Water  Court 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

with  Knole,  but,  because  the  house  was  then  both  let 
and  sub-let,  it  was  not  until  1603  that  he  was  able 
to  take  possession.  Tradition  says  that  the  Queen 
bestowed  Knole  upon  him  because  she  wished  to  have 
him  nearer  to  her  court  and  councils,  and  to  spare  him 
the  constant  journey  between  London  and  Buckhurst, 
over  the  rough,  clay-sodden  roads  of  the  Weald,  at 
that  date  still  an  uncultivated  and  almost  uninhabited 
district,  where  droves  of  wild  swine  rootled  for  acorns 
under  the  oaks.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  spent 
very  much  time  at  Knole  during  the  first  years  of  his 
ownership,  for  in  a  letter  written  in  September  1605, 
to  Lord  Salisbury,  he  says  :  "  I  go  now  to  Horsley,  and 
thence  to  Knole,  where  I  was  not  but  once  in  the  first 
beginnings  all  the  year,  whence  for  three  or  four  days 
to  Buckhurst,  where  I  was  not  these  seven  years." 
This  did  not  prevent  him  from  spending  a  great  deal 
of  money  on  the  house  ;  unfortunately  there  is  no 
record  of  what  he  spent  between  1603  and  1607,  but 
for  the  last  ten  months  of  his  life  alone  there  is  a  total, 
spent  on  buildings,  material,  and  stock,  for  four 
thousand  one  hundred  and  seven  pounds,  eleven 
shillings,  and  ninepence — an  equivalent,  in  round 
figures,  to  forty  thousand  of  modern  money.  To 
account  for  these  sums,  it  is  known  that  he  built  the 
Great  Staircase,  transformed  the  Great  Hall  to  its 
present  state,  and  put  in  the  plaster-work  ceilings  and 
marble  chimney-pieces.  He  also  put  up  the  very 
lovely  lead  water-spouts  in  the  courtyards. 

The  good  fortune  of  Lord  Buckhurst  did  not  come 
to  an  end  with  the  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  was 
one  of  those  who  travelled  to  meet  the  new  King  on 
hisjourneydown  from  the  North,was  confirmed  by  him 
in  his  tenure  of  the  office  of  Lord  Treasurer,  and  early  in 

39 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

the  following  year  was  created  Earl  of  Dorset.  The 
illuminated  patents  of  creation  are  at  Knole,  showing 
portraits  of  both  Elizabeth  and  James  I,  not  very  flat- 
tering to  either ;  and  the  Lord  Treasurer's  chest  is  at 
Knole  likewise,  a  huge  coffer  covered  in  leather  and 
thickly  studded  with  large  round-headed  brass  nails. 
There  is  a  warrant,  signed  by  him  as  Lord  Treasurer, 
for  increasing  the  duty  on  tobacco,  "That  tobacco, 
being  a  drug  brought  into  England  of  late  years  in 
small  quantities,  was  used  and  taken  by  the  better  sort 
only  as  physic  to  preserve  health  ;  but  through  evil 
custom  and  the  toleration  thereof  that  riotous  and 
disorderly  persons  spent  most  of  their  time  in  that  idle 
vanity."  This  warrant,  which  is  dated  1 605,  shows  how 
little  time  had  elapsed  since  its  introduction  before 
tobacco  established  its  popularity. 

He  was  now  advancing  in  years,  and  his  own  letters 
prove  that  his  health  was  not  very  good.  In  one  letter, 
written  to  Cecil,  he  complains  that  he  cannot  rest  more 
than  two  or  three  hours  in  the  night  at  most,  also  that 
he  is  constantly  subject  to  rheums  and  cold  and  coughs, 
forced  to  defend  himself  with  warmth,  and  to  fly  the 
air  in  cold  or  moist  weathers.  In  another  letter,  also 
written  to  Cecil,  he  again  complains  of  a  cough,  and 
says  that  he  cannot  come  abroad  for  three  or  four  days 
at  least.  But  his  devotion  to  his  public  affairs  was 
greater  than  his  attention  to  his  health,  for  he  says, 
"  I  have  by  the  space  of  this  month  and  more  foreborne 
to  take  physic  by  reason  of  her  Majesty's  business,  and 
now  having  this  only  week  left  for  physic  I  am  resolved 
to  prevent  sickness,  feeling  myself  altogether  dis- 
tempered and  filled  with  humours,  so  as  if  her  Majesty 
should  miss  me  I  beseech  you  in  respect  hereof  to 
excuse  me."  In  1607,  when  the  old  man  was  seventy- 
one,  there  was  a  report  current  in  London  that  he  was 

40 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

dead,  but  on  the  King  sending  him  a  diamond,  and 
wishing  that  he  might  Hve  so  long  as  that  ring  would 
continue,  *'  My  Lord  Treasurer,"  says  a  letter  dated 
June  1607,  "revived  again."  In  the  following  year, 
however,  he  died  dramatically  in  harness,  of  apoplexy 
while  sitting  at  the  Council  table  in  Whitehall.  His 
funeral  service  took  place  in  Westminster  Abbey,  but 
his  body  was  taken  to  Withyham,  where  it  now  lies 
buried  in  the  vault  of  his  ancestors. 


§  iii 

I  have  dealt  as  briefly  as  possible  with  the  Lord 
Treasurer's  life,  because  no  one  could  pretend  that  the 
history  of  his  embassies  or  his  occupations  of  office 
could  have  any  interest  save  to  a  student  of  the  age  of 
Elizabeth.  But  as  a  too-much-neglected  poet  I  should 
like  presently  to  quote  the  opinions  of  those  well 
qualified  to  judge,  showing  that  he  was,  at  least,  some- 
thing of  a  pioneer  in  English  literature — crude,  of 
course,  and  uniformly  gloomy  ;  too  gloomy  to  read, 
save  as  a  labour  of  love  or  conscience  ;  but  never- 
theless the  author — or  part-author — of  the  earliest 
English  tragedy,  and,  in  some  passages,  a  poet  of  a 
certain  sombre  splendour.  That  he  was  a  true  poet, 
I  think,  is  unquestionable,  unlike  his  descendant 
Charles,  who  by  virtue  of  one  song  in  particular  con- 
tinues to  survive  in  anthologies,  but  who  was  probably 
driven  into  verse  by  the  fashion  of  his  age  rather  than 
by  any  genuine  urgency  of  creation. 

The  tragedy  of  Gorboduc,  whose  title  was  afterwards 
altered  to  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  was  written  in  col- 
laboration with  Thomas  Norton,  although  the  exact 
share  of  each  author  is  not  precisely  known  and  has 
been  much  argued. 

41 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

To  the  modern  reader  [says  Professor  Saintsbury] 
Gorboduc  is  scarcely  inviting,  but  that  is  not  a  condition  of 
its  attractiveness  to  its  own  contemporaries.  [It]  is  of  the 
most  painful  regularity  ;  and  the  scrupulosity  with  which 
each  of  the  rival  princes  is  provided  with  a  counsellor  and  a 
parasite  to  himself,  and  the  other  parts  are  allotted  with 
similar  fairness,  reaches  such  a  point  that  it  is  rather  sur- 
prising that  Gorboduc  was  not  provided  with  two  queens — a 
good  and  a  bad.  But  even  these  faults  are  perhaps  less  trying 
to  the  modern  reader  than  the  inchoate  and  unpolished  con- 
dition of  the  metre  in  the  choruses,  and  indeed  in  the  blank 
verse  dialogue.  Here  and  there  there  are  signs  of  the  state- 
liness  and  poetical  imagery  of  the  Induction^  but  for  the  most 
part  the  decasyllables  stop  dead  at  their  close  and  begin 
afresh  at  their  beginning  with  a  staccato  movement  and  a 
dull  monotony  of  cadence  which  is  inexpressibly  tedious. 

Professor  Saintsbury  rightly  points  out  that  the  dull- 
ness of  Gorboduc  to  our  ideas  is  not  a  criterion  of  the 
effect  it  produced  on  readers  of  its  own  day.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  for  example,  while  excepting  it  from  the 
particular  charges  he  brings  against  all  other  English 
tragedies  and  comedies,  and  granting  that  *'  it  is  full 
of  stately  speeches  and  well-sounding  phrases,  climbing 
to  the  height  of  Seneca  his  style,  and  as  full  of  notable 
morality,  which  it  doth  most  delightfully  teach,  and  so 
obtain  the  very  end  of  poesy,"  finds  fault  with  it  in  an 
unexpected  quarter,  namely,  that  it  fails  in  two  unities, 
of  time  and  place,  so  that  the  modern  criticism  of  its 
"  painful  regularity  "  was  far  from  occurring  to  a  mind 
intent  upon  a  yet  more  rigorous  form. 

In  spite  of  its  manifest  imperfections  [says  the  Cambridge 
Modern  History],  the  tragedy  of  Gorboduc  has  two  supreme 
claims  to  honourable  commemoration.  It  introduced 
Englishmen  who  knew  no  language  but  their  own  to  an 
artistic  conception  of  tragedy,  and  it  revealed  to  them  the 
true  mode  of  tragic  expression. 

42 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

I  might  also  quote  here  the  sonnet  of  a  greater  poet, 
who  owed  much,  if  not  to  Gorboduc^  at  least  to  the 
Induction — Edmund  Spenser. 

In  vain  I  think,  right  honourable  lord, 
By  this  rude  rhyme  to  memorize  thy  name. 
Whose  learned  muse  hath  writ  her  own  record 
In  golden  verse  worthy  immortal  fame. 
Thou  much  more  fit  (were  leisure  to  the  same) 
Thy  gracious  sovereign  s  praises  to  compile. 
And  her  imperial  majesty  to  frame 
In  lofty  numbers  and  heroic  style. 
But  sith  thou  may  St  not  so,  give  leave  awhile 
To  baser  wit  his  power  therein  to  spend, 
Whose  gross  defaults  thy  dainty  pen  may  file  ^ 
And  unadvised  oversights  amend. 
But  evermore  vouchsafe  it  to  maintain 
Against  vile  Zoylus^  backbitings  vain. 

There  is  also  a  sonnet  by  Joshua  Sylvester,  of  which 
I  will  only  quote  the  anagram  prefixed  to  it  : 

Sackvilus  Comes  Dorsetius 

Vas  Lucis  Esto  decor  Musis 

Sacris  Musis  celo  devotus 

But  although  there  can  scarcely  be  two  opinions 
about  Gorboduc — that  it  is  sometimes  noble,  and  always 
dull — Sackville's  two  other  poems,  the  Induction  to  the 
Mirror  j or  Magistrates  and  the  Complaint  oj  Henry 
Duke  oj  Buckingham,  have  never  met  with  the  recog- 
nition they  deserve,  save  for  the  discriminating  ap- 
plause of  men  of  letters.  I  do  not  say  that  they  are 
works  which  can  be  read  through  with  an  unvarying 
degree  of  pleasure  ;  there  are  stagnant  passages  which 
have   to    be   waded    through   in    between   the    more 

43 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

admirable  portions.  But  such  portions,  when  they  are 
reached,  do  contain  much  of  the  genuine  stuff  of 
poetry,  impressive  imagery,  a  surprising  absence  of 
cumbersome  expression — especially  when  the  reader 
bears  in  mind  that  Sackville  was  writing  before  Spenser, 
and  long  before  Marlowe — and  a  diction  which  is  con- 
sistently dignified  and  suitable  to  the  gravity  of  the 
theme.   Take  these  stanzas  for  instance  : 

And  first  within  the  porch  and  jaws  of  hell 
Sat  deep  Remorse  of  Conscience,  all  besprent 
With  tears  ;   and  to  herself  oft  would  she  tell 
Her  wretchedness,  and  cursing  never  stent 
To  sob  and  sigh  ;   but  ever  thus  lament. 

With  thoughtful  care,  as  she  that,  all  in  vain. 
Would  wear  and  waste  continually  in  pain. 

Next  saw  we  Dread,  all  trembling :  how  he  shook 
With  foot  uncertain,  proffered  here  and  there. 
Benumbed  of  speech,  and,  with  a  ghastly  look. 
Searched  every  place,  all  pale  and  dead  for  fear. 
His  cap  borne  up  with  staring  of  his  hair, 

^Stoin^d  and  amazed  at  his  own  shade  for  dread 
And  fearing  greater  dangers  than  he  need. 

And  next,  in  order  sad.  Old  Age  we  found. 
His  beard  all  hoar,  his  eyes  hollow  and  blind. 
With  drooping  cheer  still  poring  on  the  ground. 
As  on  the  place  where  Nature  him  assigned 
To  rest,  when  that  the  sisters  had  untwined 

His  vital  thread,  and  ended  with  their  knife 

The  fleeting  course  of  fast-declining  life. 

These  stanzas  are  from  the  Induction.  Or  take 
the  following  from  the  Complaint  oj  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  : 

Midnight  was  come,  and  every  vital  thing 
With  sweet  sound  sleep  their  weary  limbs  did  rest ; 

44 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

The  beasts  were  still,  the  little  birds  that  sing 
Now  sweetly  slept  beside  their  mother's  breast^ 
The  old  and  all  well  shrouded  in  their  nest ; 
The  waters  calm,  the  cruel  seas  did  cease. 
The  woods,  the  fields,  and  all  things  held  their  peace. 

The  golden  stars  were  whirled  amid  their  race. 
And  on  the  earth  did  with  their  twinkling  light, 
IVhen  each  thing  nestled  in  his  resting  place. 
Forget  day  s  pain  with  pleasure  of  the  night ; 
The  fearful  deer  of  death  stood  not  in  doubt. 
The  partridge  dreamt  not  of  the  falcon' s  foot. 

These  quotations  will  give  some  kind  of  idea  of 
Sackville's  matter  and  manner,  and  of  the  Mirror, 
which  survives  among  the  classic  monuments  of 
English  poetry,  says  Courthope,  only  by  virtue  of  the 
genius  of  Sackville.  For  the  rest,  not  wishing  to  be 
thought  prejudiced,  I  should  like  to  quote  copiously 
from  Professor  Saintsbury's  Elizabethan  Literature, 
since  therein  is  expressed,  a  great  deal  better  than  I 
could  express  it,  my  own  view  of  Sackville's  poetry, 
and  by  calling  in  the  testimony  of  so  excellent, 
scholarly,  and  delightful  an  authority  I  may  be  freed 
from  the  charge  of  partiality  which  I  should  not  at  all 
like  to  incur. 

The  next  remarkable  piece  of  work  done  in  English 
poetry  after  Tottel's  Miscellany — ^a  piece  of  work  of  greater 
actual  poetic  merit  than  anything  in  the  Miscellany  itself — 
was  .  .  .  the  famous  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  or  rather  that 
part  of  it  contributed  by  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buck- 
hurst  .  .  .  The  Induction  and  the  Complaint  of  Buckingham, 
which  Sackville  furnished  to  it  in  1559,  though  they  were 
not  published  till  four  years  later,  completely  outweigh  all 
the  rest  in  value.  His  contributions  to  the  Mirror  for  Magis- 
trates contain  the  best  poetry  written  in  the  English  language 
between  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  and  are  most  certainly  the 

45 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

originals  or  at  least  the  models  of  some  of  Spenser's  finest 
work.  He  has  had  but  faint  praise  of  late  years  ...  I  have 
little  hesitation  in  saying  that  no  more  astonishing  con- 
tribution to  English  poetry,  when  the  due  reservations  of 
that  historical  criticism  which  is  the  life  of  all  criticism  are 
made,  is  to  be  found  anywhere.  The  bulk  is  not  great : 
twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  lines  must  cover  the  whole  of  it. 
The  form  is  not  new,  being  merely  the  7-line  stanza  already 
familiar  in  Chaucer.  The  arrangement  is  in  no  way  novel, 
combining  as  it  does  the  allegorical  presentment  of  embodied 
virtues,  vices,  and  qualities  with  the  melancholy  narrative 
common  in  poets  for  many  years  before.  But  the  poetical 
value  of  the  whole  is  extraordinary.  The  two  constituents  of 
that  value,  the  formal  and  the  material,  are  represented  here 
with  a  singular  equality  of  development.  There  is  nothing 
here  of  Wyatt's  floundering  prosody,  nothing  of  the  well- 
intentioned  doggerel  in  which  Surrey  himself  indulges  and 
in  which  his  pupils  simply  revel.  The  cadences  of  the  verse 
perfect,  the  imagery  fresh  and  sharp,  the  presentation  of 
nature  singularly  original,  when  it  is  compared  with  the 
battered  copies  of  the  poets  with  whom  Sackville  must  have 
been  most  familiar,  the  followers  of  Chaucer  from  Occleeve 
to  Hawes.  Even  the  general  plan  of  the  poem — the  weakest 
part  of  nearly  all  poems  of  this  time — is  extraordinarily 
effective  and  makes  one  sincerely  sorry  that  Sackville's  taste 
or  his  other  occupations  did  not  permit  him  to  carry  out  the 
whole  scheme  on  his  own  account.  The  Induction^  in  which 
the  author  is  brought  face  to  face  with  Sorrow,  and  the 
central  passages  of  the  Complaint  of  Buckingham^  have  a 
depth  and  fullness  of  poetical  sound  and  sense  for  which  we 
must  look  backwards  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  or  forwards 
nearly  five  and  twenty  .... 

He  has  not  indeed  the  manifold  music  of  Spenser — it 
would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  that  he  should  have  it. 
But  his  stanzas  are  of  remarkable  melody,  and  they  have 
about  them  a  command,  a  completeness  of  accomplishment 
within  the  writer's  intentions,  which  is  very  noteworthy  in 
so  young  a  man.  The  extraordinary  richness  and  stateliness 
of  the  measure  has  escaped  no  critic.  There  is  indeed  a 
certain  one-sidedness  about  it,  and  a  devil's  advocate  might 

46 


THE  GREAT  STAIRCASE  (UPPER  FLIGHT) 
Built  by  Thomas  Sackville,  1604-8 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  ELIZABETH 

urge  that  a  long  poem  couched  in  verse  (let  alone  the  sub- 
ject) of  such  unbroken  gloom  would  be  intolerable.  But 
Sackville  did  not  write  a  long  poem,  and  his  complete  com- 
mand within  his  limits  of  the  effect  at  which  he  evidently 
aimed  is  most  remarkable. 

The  second  thing  to  note  about  the  poem  is  the  extra- 
ordinary freshness  and  truth  of  its  imagery.  From  a  young 
poet  we  always  expect  second-hand  presentations  of  nature, 
and  in  Sackville's  day  second-hand  presentation  of  nature 
had  been  elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  ...  It  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  Thomas  Sackville  had,  in  the  first  place,  a 
poetical  eye  to  see,  within  as  well  as  without,  the  objects  of 
poetical  presentment ;  in  the  second  place,  a  poetical 
vocabulary  in  which  to  clothe  the  results  of  his  seeing  ;  and 
in  the  third  place,  a  poetical  ear  by  aid  of  which  to  arrange 
his  language  in  the  musical  co-ordination  necessary  to  poetry. 
Wyatt  had  been  notoriously  wanting  in  the  last ;  Surrey  had 
not  been  very  obviously  furnished  with  the  first ;  and  all 
three  were  not  to  be  possessed  by  anyone  else  till  Edmund 
Spenser  arose  to  put  Sackville's  lessons  in  practice  on  a  wider 
scale  and  with  a  less  monotonous  lyre.  It  is  possible  that 
Sackville's  claims  in  drama  may  have  been  exaggerated — 
they  have  of  late  years  rather  been  undervalued  ;  but  his 
claims  in  poetry  proper  can  only  be  overlooked  by  those  who 
decline  to  consider  the  most  important  part  of  poetry.  In 
the  subject  of  even  his  part  of  the  Mirror  there  is  nothing 
new  ;  there  is  only  a  following  of  Chaucer,  and  Gower,  and 
Occleeve,  and  Lydgate,  and  Hawes,  and  many  others.  But 
in  the  handling  there  is  one  novelty  which  makes  all  others 
of  no  effect  or  interest :  it  is  the  novelty  of  a  new  poetry. 


47 


CHAPTER   IV 

Knole  in  the  Reign  of  James  I 

RICHARD   SACKVILLE 

3rd 

Earl  of  Dorset 

and 

LADY  ANNE  CLIFFORD 

§  i 

IT  so  happens  that  a  remarkably  complete  record 
has  been  left  of  existence  at  Knole  in  the  early- 
seventeenth  century — an  existence  compounded  of 
extreme  prodigality  of  living,  tedium,  and  perpetual 
domestic  quarrels.  We  have  a  private  diary,  in  which 
every  squabble  and  reconciliation  between  Lord  and 
Lady  Dorset  is  chronicled  ;  every  gown  she  wore  ; 
every  wager  he  won  or  lost  (and  he  made  many)  ; 
every  book  she  read  ;  every  game  she  played  at  Knole 
with  the  steward  or  with  the  neighbours  ;  every  time 
she  wept  ;  every  day  she  "  sat  still,  thinking  the  time 
to  be  very  tedious."  We  have  even  a  complete  list  of 
the  servants  and  their  functions,  from  Mr.  Matthew 
Caldicott,  my  Lord's  favourite,  down  to  John 
Morockoe,  a  Blackamoor.  It  would,  out  of  this 
quantity  of  information,  be  possible  to  reconstruct  a 
play  of  singular  accuracy. 

The  author  of  the  diary  was  a  lady  of  some  fame  and 
a  great  deal  of  character  :  Lady  Anne  Clifford,  the 
daughter  and  sole  heiress  of  George,  Earl  of  Cumber- 
land, and  wife  to  Richard,  Earl  of  Dorset.  Cumber- 
land was  himself  a  picturesque  figure.  He  was  Eliza- 
beth's official  champion  at  all  jousts  and  tilting,  a 

48 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

nobleman  of  great  splendour,  and  in  addition  to  this 
display  of  truly  Elizabethan  glitter  and  parade  he  had 
the  other  facet  of  Elizabethan  virtti:  the  love  of 
adventure,  which  carried  him  eleven  times  to  sea,  to 
the  Indies  and  elsewhere,  "  for  the  service  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,"  says  his  daughter  in  the  life  she  wrote  of 
him,  "  for  the  good  of  England,  and  of  his  own 
person."  She  gives  an  account  of  her  own  appearance: 

I  was  very  happy  in  my  first  constitution  both  in  mind 
and  body,  both  for  internal  and  external  endowments,  for 
never  was  there  child  more  equally  resembling  both  father 
and  mother  than  myself.  The  colour  of  mine  eyes  were 
black,  like  my  father,  and  the  form  and  aspect  of  them  was 
quick  and  lively,  like  my  mother's ;  the  hair  of  my  head  was 
brown  and  very  thick,  and  so  long  that  it  reached  to  the  calf 
of  my  legs  when  I  stood  upright,  with  a  peak  of  hair  on  my 
forehead  and  a  dimple  in  my  chin  like  my  father,  full 
cheeks  and  round  face  like  my  mother,  and  an  exquisite 
shape  of  body  resembling  my  father. 

After  this  description,  more  remarkable  for  exactness 
perhaps  than  for  modesty,  she  adds: 

But  now  time  and  age  hath  long  since  ended  all  these 
beauties,  which  are  to  be  compared  to  the  grass  of  the  field 
{Isaiah  xl.,  6,  7,  8;  i  Peter  i.,  24).  For  now  when  I  caused 
these  memorables  of  my  self  to  be  written  I  have  passed  the 
63rd  year  of  my  age. 

Having  put  this  in  by  way  of  a  saving  clause,  she  pro- 
ceeds again  complacently: 

And  though  I  say  it,  the  perfections  of  my  mind  were 
much  above  those  of  my  body  ;  I  had  a  strong  and  copious 
memory,  a  sound  judgement,  and  a  discerning  spirit,  and  so 
much  of  a  strong  imagination  in  me  as  that  many  times  even 
my  dreams  and  apprehensions  beforehand  proved  to  be 
true  ;  so  as  old  Mr.  John  Denham,  a  great  astronomer,  that 
sometime  lived  in  my  father's  house,  would  often  say  that 

49  ^ 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

I  had  much  in  me  in  nature  to  show  that  the  sweet  influences 
of  the  Pleiades  and  the  bands  of  Orion  were  powerful  both 
at  my  conception  and  my  nativity. 

She  was  innocent  of  unnecessary  diffidence.  Yet  she 
was  not  without  gratitude  : 

I  must  not  forget  to  acknowledge  that  in  my  infancy  and 
youth,  and  a  great  part  of  my  life,  I  have  escaped  many 
dangers,  both  by  fire  and  water,  by  passage  in  coaches  and 
falls  from  horses,  by  burning  fevers,  and  excessive  extremity 
of  bleeding  many  times  to  the  great  hazard  of  my  life,  all 
which,  and  many  cunning  and  wicked  devices  of  my  enemies, 
I  have  escaped  and  passed  through  miraculously,  and  much 
the  better  by  the  help  and  prayers  of  my  devout  mother, 
who  incessantly  begged  of  God  for  my  safety  and  preserva- 
tion {Jas.  v.,  1 6). 

To  her  mother  she  seems  to  have  been  excessively 
devoted  ;  and  indeed,  in  the  midst  of  this  stubborn 
and  peremptory  character,  the  most  vulnerable  spot  is 
her  tenderness  for  her  relations  ;  those  of  her  relations, 
that  is  to  say,  with  whom  she  was  not  at  mortal  enmity. 

The  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  occurred 
when  Anne  Clifford  was  a  girl  of  thirteen,  was  a  dis- 
appointment to  her  in  more  ways  than  one,  for  *'  if 
Queen  Elizabeth  had  lived  she  intended  to  prefer  me 
to  be  of  the  Privy  Chamber,  for  at  that  time  there  was 
as  much  hope  and  expectation  of  me  as  of  any  other 
young  lady  whatsoever,"  and  moreover  **my  Mother 
and  Aunt  of  Warwick  being  mourners,  I  was  not 
allowed  to  be  one,  because  I  was  not  high  enough, 
which  did  much  trouble  me  then."  She  was  not  even 
allowed  the  privilege  of  watching  by  the  great  Queen's 
body  after  it  had  come  **  by  night  in  a  Barge  from 
Richmond  to  Whitehall,  my  Mother  and  a  great  Com- 
pany of  Ladies  attending  it,  where  it  continued  a  great 

50 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

while  standing  in  the  Drawing  Chamber,  where  it  was 
watched  all  night  by  several  Lords  and  Ladies,  my 
Mother  sitting  up  with  it  two  or  three  nights,  but  my 
Lady  would  not  give  me  leave  to  watch,  by  reason 
I  was  held  too  young."  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
writer,  who  possessed  so  vivid  and  unself-conscious  a 
pen,  should  have  been  thus  defrauded  of  setting  upon 
record  the  scene  in  which  the  old  Queen,  stiff  as  an 
effigy,  and  blazing  with  the  jewels  of  England,  lay  for 
the  last  time  in  state,  by  the  light  of  candles,  among  the 
great  nobles  whom  in  her  lifetime  she  had  bullied  and 
governed,  and  whom  even  in  death  the  rigidity  of  that 
bejezabelled  presence  could  still  overawe. 

Although  she  had  not  been  allowed  to  see  the  dead 
Queen,  Lady  Anne  was  taken  to  see  the  new  King,  but 
did  not  find  the  court  to  her  liking  : 

We  all  went  to  Tibbalds  to  see  the  King,  who  used  my 
Mother  and  Aunt  very  graciously,  but  we  all  saw  a  great 
change  between  the  fashion  of  the  Court  as  it  is  now  and  of 
that  in  the  Queen's  time,  for  we  were  all  lousy  by  sitting  in 
the  chamber  of  Sir  Thomas  Erskine. 

This  unpropitious  introduction  was  the  first  she  had 
to  James  I,  but  it  was  by  no  means  her  last  meeting 
with  him,  for  she  relates  several  later  on  which  might 
more  properly  be  called  encounters. 

About  two  years  after  Elizabeth's  death  Lord 
Cumberland  died,  "  very  patiently  and  willingly  of  a 
bloody  flux,"  leaving  Anne  Clifford  his  only  surviving 
child  and  heiress,  then  being  aged  about  fifteen  years. 
Her  father  cannot  have  been  much  more  than  a  name 
to  her,  for  although  "  endowed  with  many  per- 
fections of  nature  befitting  so  noble  a  personage,  as  an 
excellent  quickness  of  wit  and  apprehension,  an  active 

51 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

and  strong  body,  and  an  affable  disposition  and 
behaviour,"  he  "  fell  to  love  a  lady  of  quality,"  which 
created  a  breach  between  himself  and  his  wife,  and 
*'  when  my  Mother  and  he  did  meet,  their  countenance 
did  show  the  dislike  they  had  one  of  another,  yet  he 
would  speak  to  me  in  a  slight  fashion  and  give  me  his 
blessing  ....  My  Father  used  to  come  to  us  some- 
times at  Clerkenwell,  but  not  often,  for  he  had  at  this 
time  as  it  were  wholly  left  my  Mother,  yet  the  house 
was  kept  still  at  his  charge."  All  this  early  part  of  her 
life,  I  ought  to  explain,  is  related  by  her  in  the  Lives 
of  her  parents  and  herself,  which  she  compiled  in  her 
old  age  ;  and  partly  from  a  diary  of  reminiscences,  a 
transcript  of  which  is  at  Knole,  and  which  she  appears 
to  have  written  at  the  same  time  as  the  more  detailed 
Diary  which  she  was  then  (1616-1619)  keeping  from 
day  to  day.  She  had  a  happy  childhood  with  her 
mother,  and  cousins  of  her  own  age — "All  this  time 
we  were  merry  at  North  Hall.  My  Coz.  Frances 
Bouchier  and  my  Coz.  Francis  Russell  and  I  did  use 
to  walk  much  in  the  garden,  and  were  great  with  one 
another.  I  used  to  wear  my  Hair-coloured  Velvet 
every  day,  and  learned  to  sing  and  play  on  the  Bass- 
Viol  of  Jack  Jenkins,  my  Aunt's  boy." 

The  Diary  at  Knole  jumps  without  any  warning  or 
transition  from  the  reminiscences  of  youth  to  1616. 
It  begins  with  a  sad  little  hint  of  the  weariness  that  was 
to  follow:  '*A11  the  time  I  stayed  in  the  country  I  was 
sometimes  merry  and  sometimes  sad,  as  I  had  news  from 
London."  She  had  then  been  married  for  seven  years 
to  Richard  Sackville,  third  Earl  of  Dorset,  grandson 
to  Queen  Elizabeth's  old  Treasurer,  who  was  himself 
anxious  for  the  match,  writing  to  Sir  George  Moore 
about  "  that  virtuous   young  lady,  the   Lady  Anne 

52 


RICHARD  SACKVILLE,  3RD  Earl  of  Dorset,  K.G. 
From  the  miniature  by  Isaac  Oliver  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

Clifford,"  and  soliciting  Moore's  good  offices  with  Lady 
Cumberland. 

There  were,  in  all,  five  children  of  the  marriage  : 
three  little  boys,  who  all  '*  died  young  at  Knole  where 
they  were  born,"  and  two  little  girls,  of  whom 
Margaret,  born  in  1614,  figures  largely  in  the  Diary 
and  is  the  only  one  to  concern  us,  since  Isabel  was 
not  born  till  some  years  after  Lady  Anne  had  ceased 
to  keep  the  Diary.  Lady  Anne's  mother  travelled  to 
London  from  the  North  in  order  to  be  present  at  the 
birth  of  Margaret,  the  first  child ;  but  by  a  strange  mis- 
chance the  journey  was  rendered  vain,  for,  having  gone 
"  into  the  Tower  of  London  to  see  some  friends  there, 
where,  the  gates  being  shut  up  by  an  accident  that 
happened,  she  was  kept  there  till  after  her  daughter 
was  delivered  of  her  first  child,  though  she  had  made 
a  journey  purposely  from  Appleby  Castle,  in  West- 
moreland, to  London."  Not  only  does  the  Diary 
contain  constant  references  to  this  little  girl,  but  Lady 
Anne's  letters  to  her  mother,  now  at  Appleby,  are 
rarely  without  some  comment — 

she  begins  to  break  out  very  much  upon  her  head,  which 
I  hope  will  make  her  very  healthful  [a  curious  theory].  She 
hath  yet  no  teeth  come  out,  but  they  are  most  of  them 
swelled  in  the  flesh,  so  that  now  and  then  they  make  her 
very  froward.  I  have  found  your  Ladyship's  words  true 
about  the  nurse  had  for  her,  for  she  hath  been  one  of  the 
most  unhealthfullest  women  that  I  think  ever  was,  and  so 
extremely  troubled  with  the  toothache  and  rheums  and 
swelling  in  her  face  as  could  be,  and  one  night  she  fell  very 
ill,  and  was  taken  like  an  ague  so  as  she  had  but  little  milk 
left,  and  so  I  was  enforced  to  send  for  the  next  woman  that 
was  by  to  give  my  child  suck,  whom  hath  continued  with 
her  ever  since,  and  I  thank  God  the  child  agrees  so  well  with 
her  milk  as  may  be,  so  I  mean  not  to  change  her  any  more. 
It  is  a  miracle  to  me  that  the  child  should  prosper  so  well. 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

She  is  but  a  little  one,  I  confess,  but  a  livelier  and  merrier 
thing  was  there  never  yet  seen. 

Dorset  also  was  fond  of  the  little  girl,  for  in  other 
letters  to  her  mother  Anne  says,  after  apologising  for 
her  bad  writing,  which  she  terms  "  scribbling,"  *'  my 
Lord  is  as  fond  of  her  as  can  be,  and  calls  her  his 
mistress";  and  again,  *'My  Lord  to  her  is  a  very  kind, 
loving,  and  dear  father,  and  in  everything  will  I  com- 
mend him,  saving  only  in  this  business  of  my  land, 
wherein  I  think  some  evil  spirit  works,  for  in  this  he 
is  as  violent  as  possible,  so  I  must  either  do  it  next 
term  or  else  break  friendship  and  love  with  him";  and 
Dorset  was,  on  his  side,  of  the  same  opinion,  for  in  a 
letter  written  to  her  at  Knole,  which  begins  *'  Sweet 
Heart,"  and  sends  messages  to  the  child,  he  adds  to  his 
wife,  "  whom  in  all  things  I  love  and  hold  a  sober 
woman,  your  land  only  excepted,  which  transports  you 
beyond  yourself,  and  makes  you  devoid  of  all  reason." 
It  would  appear  that  but  for  this  unfortunate  question 
of  the  lands  and  money  they  might  have  lived  happily 
together,  affection  not  lacking,  and  on  Anne's  part  at 
any  rate  good  will  not  lacking  either,  as  witness  her 
constant  defence  of  him,  even  to  her  mother  : 

It  is  true  that  they  have  brought  their  matters  so  about 
that  I  am  in  the  greatest  strait  that  ever  poor  creature  was, 
but  whatsoever  you  may  think  of  my  Lord,  I  have  found  him, 
do  find  him,  and  think  I  shall  find  him,  the  best  and  most 
worthy  man  that  ever  breathed,  therefore,  if  it  be  possible, 
I  beseech  you,  have  a  better  opinion  of  him,  if  you  know  all 
I  do,  I  am  sure  you  would  believe  this  that  I  write,  but  I 
durst  not  impart  my  mind  about  when  I  was  with  you, 
because  I  found  you  so  bitter  against  him,  or  else  I  could 
have  told  you  so  many  arguments  of  his  goodness  and  worth 
that  you  should  have  seen  it  plainly  yourself. 

54 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

They  were  married  when  she  was  nineteen  and  he 
was  twenty,  and  two  days  after  their  marriage  he 
succeeded  to  his  father's  titles  and  estates  :  *'  We  have 
no  other  news  here  but  of  weddings  and  burials,  the 
Earl  of  Dorset  died  on  Monday  night  leaving  a 
heaire  [?]  widow  God  wot,  and  his  son  seeing  him  past 
hope  the  Saturday  before  married  the  Lady  Anne 
Clifford."  In  spite,  however,  of  all  they  had  to  make 
life  pleasant — their  youth,  their  wealth,  and  the 
privileges  of  their  position — they  spent  the  succeeding 
years  in  making  it  as  unpleasant  as  they  possibly  could 
for  one  another. 

I  hardly  think  that  it  is  necessary  or  even  interesting 
to  go  into  the  legal  details  of  the  long  dispute  over 
Lord  Cumberland's  will.  The  interest  of  Anne  and 
Richard  Dorset  is  human,  not  litigious.  It  may  there- 
fore be  sufficient  to  say  that  by  the  terms  of  his  will 
Lord  Cumberland  bequeathed  the  vast  Clifford  estates 
in  Westmoreland  to  his  brother  Sir  Francis  Clifford, 
with  the  proviso  that  they  should  revert  to  Anne,  his 
daughter,  in  the  event  of  the  failure  of  heirs  male,  a 
reversion  which  eventually  took  place,  thirty-eight 
years  after  his  death.  What  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
realized  was  that  the  estates  were  already  entailed 
upon  Lady  Anne  ;  and  that  he  was,  by  his  will, 
illegally  breaking  an  entail  which  dated  back  to  the 
reign  of  Edward  II. 

It  is  easy  to  judge,  from  this  broad  indication,  the 
infinite  possibiUties  for  litigation  amongst  persons  con- 
tentiously  minded.  Such  persons  were  not  lacking. 
There  was  Lady  Cumberland,  Anne's  mother,  bent 
upon  safeguarding  the  rights  of  her  daughter.  There 
was  Francis,  the  new  Earl  of  Cumberland,  equally 
bent  upon  preserving  what  had  been  left  to  him  by 

55 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

will.  There  was  Richard  Dorset,  whose  own  fortune 
was  not  adequate  to  his  extravagance,  and  who,  having 
married  an  heiress,  was  determined  for  his  own  sake 
that  that  heiress  should  not  be  defrauded  of  her 
inheritance,  or  that,  if  she  was  to  be  defrauded,  he  at 
least  should  receive  ample  compensation.  And  finally 
there  was  Anne  herself,  who  was  more  resolved  than 
any  of  them  that  she  and  the  North  of  England  should 
not  be  parted.  Dorset's  part,  of  the  four,  was  the  most 
elaborate  and  the  most  discreditable.  He  would  have 
been  willing  for  his  wife  to  renounce  some  of  her  claims 
in  return  for  the  compromise  of  ready  cash.  Anne, 
however,  remained  single-hearted  throughout  :  she 
was  the  legal  heiress  of  the  North,  and  the  North  she 
would  have  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  the  otherwise  sordid 
and  mercenary  dispute,  in  which  Dorset  used  every 
means  of  coercion,  she  remains  fixed  in  her  perfectly 
definite  attitude  of  obstinacy,  unswayed  by  her 
husband,  his  relations,  her  own  relations,  their  friends, 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  King  himself, 
their  remonstrances,  their  threats,  their  vindictiveness, 
and  the  actual  injuries  she  had  to  endure  over  a  long 
stretch  of  years.  In  the  end  she  got  the  better  of  them 
all,  and  the  last  picture  of  her  left  by  the  "  Lives  "  is 
that  of  a  triumphant  and  imperious  old  lady,  retired 
to  the  stronghold  of  her  northern  castles,  where  her 
authority  could  stand  "  against  sectaries,  almost  against 
Parliaments  and  armies  themselves  "  ;  refusing  to  go 
to  court  "  unless  she  might  wear  blinkers  ";  moving 
with  feudal,  with  almost  royal,  state  between  her  many 
castles,  from  Appleby  to  Pendragon,  from  Pendragon 
to  Brougham,  from  Brougham  to  Brough,  from 
Brough  to  Skipton  ;  building  brew-houses,  wash- 
houses,  bake-houses,  kitchens,  stables  ;   sending  word 

56 


LADY  ANNE  CLIFFORD 

Wife  to  Richard  Sackville,  3RD  Earl  of  Dorset 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Mytens 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

to  Cromwell  that  as  fast  as  he  should  knock  her  castles 
about  her  ears  she  would  surely  put  them  up  again  ; 
endowing  almshouses  ;  ruling  over  her  almswomen 
and  her  tenants  ;  receiving,  like  the  patriarchal  old 
despot  that  she  was,  the  generations  of  her  children,  her 
grandchildren,  and  her  great-grandchildren. 

Before  she  could  reach  these  serene  waters,  however, 
she  had  many  storms  to  weather,  and  to  bear  the 
*'  crosses  and  contradictions  "  which  caused  her  to 
write  "  the  marble  pillars  of  Knole  in  Kent  and  Wilton 
in  Wiltshire  were  to  me  oftentimes  but  the  gay  arbours 
of  anguish."  Richard  Sackville  in  his  own  day  was  a 
byword  for  extravagance,  and  was  bent  on  extorting 
from  his  wife  for  the  purposes  of  his  own  pleasure  the 
utmost  resources  of  her  inheritance.  His  portrait  is  at 
Knole,  a  full-length  by  Van  Somer  ;  he  has  a  pale, 
pointed  face,  dark  hair  growing  in  a  peak,  and  small 
mean  eyes,  and  is  dressed  entirely  in  black  with 
enormous  silver  rosettes  on  his  shoes.  There  is  also  the 
very  beautiful  miniature  of  him  by  Isaac  Oliver  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  showing  the  richness  of 
his  clothes,  his  embroidered  stockings,  and  his  hand 
resting  upon  the  extravagantly-plumed  helmet  on  the 
table  beside  him. 

His  life  is  an  empty  record  of  gambling,  cock-fight- 
ing, tilting  ;  of  balls  and  masques,  women  and  fine 
clothes.  '*  Above  all  they  speak  of  the  Earl  of  Dorset," 
says  a  contemporary  letter,  after  describing  the  lavish- 
ness  of  some  of  the  costumes  worn  in  a  Court  masque 
in  which  he  was  taking  part,  "  but  their  extreme  cost 
and  riches  make  us  all  poor,"  and  Clarendon  says  of 
him,  "  his  excess  of  expenditure,  in  all  the  ways  to 
which  money  could  be  applied,  was  such  that  he  so 
entirely   consumed   almost   the  whole   great   fortune 

57 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

which  descended  to  him,  that  when  he  was  forced  to 
leave  the  title  to  his  younger  brother  he  left,  in  a 
manner,  nothing  to  him  to  support  it."  The  enormous 
estates  which  he  inherited,  the  careful  accumulation  of 
the  old  Lord  Treasurer,  he  sold  in  great  part,  in  order 
to  squander  the  proceeds  upon  his  amusements;  before 
he  had  been  in  possession  for  three  years  he  had  sold 
the  manor  of  Sevenoaks,  and  had  "  conveyed  "  Knole 
itself  to  one  Henry  Smith  (retaining,  however,  the 
house  at  a  rent  of  ^i  oo  a  year  for  his  own  use),  and  in 
the  course  of  rather  less  than  ten  years  he  had  sold 
estates,  including  much  of  Fleet  Street  and  the  Manor 
of  Holborn,  to  the  value  of  ^80,616,  or  nearly  a 
million  of  modern  money. 

In  Aubrey's  Bodleian  Letters  there  is  an  anecdote 
concerning  him,  not  devoid  of  humour  : 

He  [Sir  Kenelm  Digby]  married  that  celebrated  beauty 
and  courtesan,  Mrs.  Venetia  Stanley,  whom  Richard,  Earl 
of  Dorset,  kept  as  his  concubine,  had  children  by  her,  and 
settled  on  her  an  annuity  of  ;^500  per  annum  ;  which  after 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby  married  her  was  unpaid  by  the  Earl :  Sir 
Kenelm  Digby  sued  the  Earl,  after  marriage,  and  recovered 
it.  Venetia  Stanley  was  a  most  beautiful  and  desirable 
creature  .  .  .  sanguine  and  tractable,  and  of  much  suavity. 

In  those  days  Richard,  Earl  of  Dorset,  lived  in  the  greatest 
splendour  of  any  nobleman  of  England. 

After  her  marriage  she  [Venetia  Stanley]  redeemed  her 
honour  by  her  strict  living.  Once  a  year  the  Earl  of  Dorset 
invited  her  and  Sir  Kenelm  to  dinner,  where  the  Earl  would 
behold  her  with  much  passion,  yet  only  kiss  her  hand. 

Later  on  in  his  life  a  certain  Lady  Peneystone 
appears,  who  considerably  complicated  the  already 
difficult  relations  between  Anne  and  himself. 

Anne  Clifford  herself,  in  spite  of  all  that  she  had  to 
endure  at  his  hands,  gives  a  charitable  account  of  him. 

58 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  I 

This  first  lord  of  mine  was  in  his  own  nature  of  a  just  mind, 
of  a  sweet  disposition,  and  very  valiant  in  his  own  person. 

He  was  ...  so  great  a  lover  of  scholars  and  soldiers,  as 
that  with  an  excessive  bounty  towards  them,  or  indeed  any 
of  worth  that  were  in  distress,  he  did  much  to  diminish  his 
estate,  as  also  with  excessive  prodigality  in  housekeeping, 
and  other  noble  ways  at  court,  as  tilting,  masqueing,  and  the 
like.  Prince  Henry  being  then  alive,  who  was  much  addicted 
to  these  exercises,  and  of  whom  he  was  much  beloved. 

What  his  wife  says  of  his  being  a  great  lover  of 
scholars  is  borne  out  by  his  friendship  with  and 
patronage  of  Beaumont,  Ben  Jonson,  Fletcher,  and 
Drayton.  Nothing  else  remains  to  his  credit.  He  is 
utterly  eclipsed — weak,  vain,  and  prodigal — by  the 
interest  of  that  woman  of  character,  his  wife,  knowing 
so  well  to  **  discourse  of  all  things,  from  predestination 
to  slea^  silk,"  and  by  the  faithful  picture  that  is  her 
Diary. 

She  is  living  (1616)  principally  at  Knole,  sometimes 
in  London,  sometimes  making  an  expedition  into  the 
North  to  join  her  mother,  who  in  all  her  difficulties 
was  her  counsellor  and  ally.  The  perpetual  topic  of  the 
diary  is  the  dispute  with  her  husband  : 

"  My  Coz  :  Russell  came  to  me  the  same  day,  and  chid 
me,  and  told  me  of  all  my  faults  and  errors,  he  made  me 
weep  bitterly,  then  I  spoke  a  prayer  of  Owens,  and  came 
home  by  water  where  I  took  an  extreme  Cold." 

The  Archbishop  [of  Canterbury]  my  Lord  William 
Howard,  my  Lord  Rous,  my  Coz  :  Russell,  my  brother 
Sackville,  and  a  great  company  of  men  were  all  in  the 
gallery  at  Dorset  House,  where  the  Archbishop  took  me 
aside  and  talked  with  me  privately  one  hour  and  half,  and 

1  Slea= unravelled. 

59 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

persuaded  me  both  by  Divine  and  human  means  to  set  my 
hand  to  their  arguments.  But  my  answer  to  his  Lordship 
was  that  I  would  do  nothing  until  my  Lady  [her  mother]  and 
I  had  conferred  together.  Much  persuasion  was  used  by 
him  and  all  the  company,  sometimes  terrifying  me  and  some- 
times flattering  me. 

Next  day  was  a  marvellous  day  to  me,  for  it  was  generally 
thought  that  I  must  either  have  sealed  the  argument  or  else 
have  parted  from  my  Lord. 

She  then  starts  for  the  North — a  hazardous  journey 
— to  confer  with  her  mother. 

We  had  two  coaches  in  our  company  with  four  horses 
apiece  and  about  twenty-six  horsemen.  I  came  to  my  lodgings 
[at  Derby]  with  a  heavy  heart  considering  how  many  things 
stood  between  my  Lord  and  L 

We  went  from  the  Parsons'  House  near  the  Dangerous 
Moors,  being  eight  miles  and  afterwards  the  ways  so  dan- 
gerous the  horses  were  fain  to  be  taken  out  of  the  coach  to  be 
lifted  down  the  hills.  This  day  Rivers'  horse  fell  from  a  bridge 
into  the  river.  We  came  to  Manchester  about  ten  at  night. 

Dorset  was  not  above  subjecting  her  to  petty  annoy- 
ances and  humiliations,  for  he  sends  messengers  after 
her  with  "  letters  to  show  it  was  my  Lord's  pleasure 
that  the  men  and  horses  should  come  away  without 
me,  so  after  much  falling  out  betwixt  my  Lady  [her 
mother]  and  them,  all  the  folks  went  away,  there  being 
a  paper  drawn  to  show  that  they  went  away  by  my 
Lord's  direction  and  contrary  to  my  will.^    At  night  I 

^The  original  of  this  curious  paper  is  now  at  Appleby,  dated  April  ist, 
1616,  and  runs  as  follows:  "A  memoranda  that  I,  Anne,  Countess  of 
Dorset,  sole  daughter  and  heir  to  George,  late  Earl  of  Cumberland,  do  take 
witness  of  all  these  gentlemen  present,  that  I  both  desire  and  offer  myself 
to  go  up  to  London  with  my  men  and  horses,  but  they,  having  received  a 
contrary  commandment  from  my  Lord,  my  husband,  will  by  no  means  con- 
sent nor  permit  me  to  go  with  them.  Now  my  desire  is  that  all  the  world 
may  know  that  this  stay  of  mine  proceeds  only  from  my  husband's  command, 
contrary  to  my  consent  or  agreement,  whereof  I  have  gotten  these  names 
underwritten  to  testify  the  same." 

60 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  I 

sent  two  messengers  to  my  folks  to  entreat  them  to 
stay.  For  some  two  nights  my  mother  and  I  lay 
together,  and  had  much  talk  about  this  business." 

In  order  to  get  back  to  London  she  has  to  borrow 
a  coach  from  her  mother,  from  whom  she  takes  a 
**  grievous  and  heavy  parting."  Arrived  at  Knole,  *'  I 
had  a  cold  welcome  from  my  Lord,"  and  a  day  or  two 
later  he  takes  his  departure  for  London,  sending  con- 
stant messengers  and  letters,  to  know  whether  she  will 
give  way  to  his  demands.  "  About  this  time,"  she 
sadly  writes — it  is  April,  spring  at  Knole,  and  she  then 
aged  twenty-six — "  about  this  time  I  used  to  rise  early 
in  the  morning  and  go  to  the  Standing  in  the  garden, 
and  taking  my  prayer  book  with  me  beseech  God  to  be 
merciful  to  me  and  to  help  me  as  He  always  hath  done." 

Meanwhile  Dorset's  threats  increase  in  virulence  : 
on  the  first  of  May  he  sends  Mr.  Rivers  to  tell  her  she 
shall  live  neither  at  Knole  nor  at  Bolbrook  ;  on  the 
second  he  sends  Mr.  Legg  to  tell  the  servants  he  will 
come  down  once  more  to  see  her,  which  shall  be  the 
last  time  ;  and  on  the  third  he  sends  Peter  Basket,  his 
gentleman  of  the  horse,  with  a  letter  to  say  "  it  was  his 
pleasure  that  the  Child  should  go  the  next  day  to 
London  .  .  .  when  I  considered  that  it  would  both 
make  my  Lord  more  angry  with  me  and  be  worse  for 
the  Child  I  resolved  to  let  her  go  ;  after  I  had  sent 
for  Mr.  Legg  and  talked  with  him  about  that  and  other 
matters  I  wept  bitterly." 

On  the  fourth  "...  the  Child  went  into  the 
litter  to  go  to  London."  There  is  no  comment.  It 
must  have  been  a  pathetic  little  departure. 

On  the  ninth  she  received,  besides  the  news  that  her 
mother  was  dangerously  ill,  *'  a  letter  from  my  Lord 
to  let  me  know  his  determination  was  the  Child  should 

6i 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

go  to  live  at  Horsley,  and  not  come  hither  any  more, 
so  as  this  was  a  very  grievous  and  sorrowful  day  to  me." 
An  unusual  bitterness  escapes  from  her  pen  : 

All  this  time  my  Lord  was  in  London  where  he  had  all 
and  infinite  great  resort  coming  to  him.  He  went  much 
abroad  to  Cocking  and  Bowling  Alleys,  to  plays  and  horse 
races,  and  commended  by  all  the  world.  I  stayed  in  the 
country,  having  many  times  a  sorrowful  and  heavy  heart,  and 
being  condemned  by  most  folks  because  I  would  not  consent 
to  the  agreement,  so  as  I  may  truly  say  I  am  like  an  owl  in 
the  desert. 

And  a  few  days  later  : 

My  Lord  came  down  from  London,  my  Lord  lying  in 
Leslie  Chamber  and  I  in  my  own.  My  Lord  and  I  after 
supper  had  some  talk,  we  fell  out  and  parted  for  that  night. 

There  was  worse  to  come,  for  at  the  end  of  the  month 
her  mother  died,  "  which  I  held  as  the  greatest  and 
most  lamentable  cross  that  could  have  befallen  me," 
and,  mixed  up  with  this  sorrow,  which  is  evidently 
genuine,  is  the  fear  that  she  may  be  definitely  dis- 
possessed of  the  inheritance  of  her  forefathers.  She 
found,  however,  that  she  had  the  disposal  of  the  body, 
**  which  was  some  contentment  to  my  aggrieved  soul." 
Her  sorrows  begin  to  lighten.  Dorset,  probably  per- 
ceiving his  bullying  to  be  worse  than  useless  against  a 
woman  of  her  mettle,  tries  a  different  tack  :  "  My 
Lord  assured  me  how  kind  and  good  a  husband  he 
would  be  to  me  ";  they  patch  up  a  reconciliation,  and 
she  makes  over  to  him  certain  of  her  Cumberland 
estates  in  default  of  heirs  ;  they  agree  that  Mrs. 
Bathurst,  apparently  a  bone  of  contention,  should  "go 
away  from  the  Child  ...  so  that  my  Lord  and  I  were 
never  greater  friends  than  at  this  time  .  .  .  and  my 

62 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  I 

Lord  brought  me  down  to  the  coach  side  where  we  had 
a  loving  and  kind  parting."  He  even  joined  her  in  the 
North,  and  she  records  how  at  Appleby  Castle  she  set 
up  the  "  green  velvet  bed  where  the  same  night  we 
went  to  lie  there,"  and  how  "  in  the  afternoon  I 
wrought  stitchwork  and  my  Lord  sat  and  read  by  me." 
She  gives  many  particulars  of  how  she  spent  her  days 
in  the  North.  I  fancy  she  was  a  good  deal  happier  there, 
and  more  at  home,  and  consequently  more  light- 
hearted,  than  at  Knole.  At  the  same  time  she  was 
anxious  to  go  back  to  London  to  rejoin  Dorset,  but 
this  for  some  reason  he  was  not  disposed  to  allow.  She 
consoled  herself  with  innocuous  occupations  : 

This  month  I  spent  in  working  and  reading.  Mr. 
Dunbell  read  a  great  part  of  the  History  of  the  Netherlands. 
.  .  .  Upon  the  ist  I  rose  by  times  in  the  morning  and  went 
up  to  the  Pagan  Tower  to  my  prayers,  and  saw  the  sun  rise. 
.  .  .  Upon  the  4th  I  sat  in  the  Drawing  Chamber  all  the 
day  at  my  work.  .  .  .  Upon  the  9th  I  sat  at  my  work  and 
heard  Rivers  and  Marsh  read  Montaigne's  Essays,  which 
book  they  have  read  almost  this  fortnight.  .  .  .  Upon  the 
1 2th  I  made  an  end  of  my  cushion  of  Irish  stitch,  it  being 
my  chief  help  to  pass  away  the  time  at  work.  .  .  .  Upon  the 
2 1st  was  the  first  day  I  put  on  my  black  silk  grogram  gown. 
.  .  .  Upon  the  20th  I  spent  most  of  the  day  in  playing  at 
Tables.  All  this  time  since  my  Lord  went  away  I  wore  my 
black  Taffety  night-gown  1  and  a  yellow  Taffety  waistcoat  and 
used  to  rise  betimes  in  the  morning  and  walk  upon  the  leads 
and  afterwards  to  hear  reading.  Upon  the  23rd  I  did  string 
the  pearls  and  diamonds  left  me  by  my  mother  into  a  necklace. 

At  last  the  summons  came,  and  "  upon  the  24th 
Basket  set  out  from  London  to  Brougham  Castle  to 
fetch  me  up.  I  bought  of  Mr.  Cleborn  who  came  to  see 
me  a  clock  and  a  save-Guard  [  =  cloak]  of  cloth  laced 

^  Night-gown,  of  course,  has  not  the  modern  meaning,  as  at  that  date 
people  slept  naked. 

63 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

with  black  lace  to  keep  me  warm  on  my  journey." 
Dorset  sent  in  the  retinue  to  fetch  her,  moreover,  a 
cook,  a  baker,  and  a  Tom  Fool. 

Her  arrival  in  London  was  auspicious  :  Dorset  and 
a  company  of  relatives  came  out  to  meet  her  at 
Islington,  so  that  there  were  in  all  ten  or  eleven  coaches, 
and  when  she  arrived  at  Dorset  House  she  found  the 
house  ''  well  dressed  up  against  I  came,"  and  the  Child 
met  her  in  the  gallery.  Moreover,  "  all  this  time  of  my 
being  at  London  I  was  much  sent  to  and  visited  by 
many  "  (the  young  heiress,  whose  matrimonial  dis- 
putes had  raised  so  much  dust  at  Court,  was  an  object 
of  interest  and  curiosity),  and  she  made  friends  :  *'  My 
Lady  Manners  came  in  the  morning  to  dress  my  head. 
I  had  a  new  black  wrought  Taffety  gown  which  my 
Lady  St.  John's  tailor  made.  She  used  often  to  come 
to  me, and  I  to  her,  and  was  very  kind  one  to  another." 
Such  troubles  as  she  had  were  but  slight  :  "  I  dined 
above  in  my  chamber  and  wore  my  night-gown 
because  I  was  not  very  well,  which  day  and  yesterday 
I  forgot  that  it  was  fish  day  and  ate  flesh  at  both 
dinners.  In  the  afternoon  I  played  at  Glecko  ^  with 
my  Lady  Gray  and  lost  ^27  odd  money."  So  far,  so 
good.  She  gave  a  sweet-bag  to  the  Queen  for  a  New 
Year's  gift,  and  was  kissed  by  the  King.  She  went  to 
see  the  play  of  the  Mad  Lover  ;  she  went  to  the  Tower 
to  see  Lord  and  Lady  Somerset,  lying  there  since  their 
arraignment  ;  she  went  to  the  Court  to  see  Lord 
Villiers  created  Earl  of  Buckingham  ;  she  ate  a 
"  scrambling  supper  "  and  went  to  see  the  Masque  on 
Twelfth  Night.  She  betrays  with  an  unsophisticated 
and  rather  charming  ingenuity  her  delight  in  these 

^  Glecko,  or  Gleck :  a  three-handed  game  played  with  44  cards  (eight  left 
in  stock).     The  gleck  consisted  in  three  of  a  kind. 

64 


KNOLE   IN  THE   REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

things.  But  the  storm  scowled  at  her  over  the  rim  of  the 
horizon,  and  presently  it  broke.  The  first  entries  are 
like  the  splash  of  the  first  big  rain-drops  :  "  We  came 
from  London  to  Knole  ;  this  night  my  Lord  and  I  had 
a  falling  out  about  the  land."  Next  day  she  has  Mr. 
Sandy's  book  about  the  government  of  the  Turks  read 
aloud  to  her,  but  "  my  Lord  sat  the  most  part  of  the 
day  reading  in  his  closet."  Next  day  his  sulks 
materialized,  and  he  *'  went  up  to  London  upon  the 
sudden,  we  not  knowing  it  till  the  afternoon." 

Six  days  later — there  are  no  entries  in  the  diary  to 
record  the  suspense  of  these  six  days — she  is  sent  for  to 
London  to  see  the  King,  a  higher  test  for  her  strength 
of  mind,  even,  than  the  former  persuasions  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  Will  she  capitulate  at  last  ?  or 
will  she  come  out  with  her  flag  still  flying  ?  the 
tongues  of  London  wagged.  The  interview  is  best 
given  in  her  own  words  : 

Upon  the  17th  when  I  came  up,  my  Lord  told  me  I  must 
resolve  to  go  to  the  King  next  day.  Upon  the  i8th  being 
Saturday,  I  went  presently  after  dinner  to  the  Queen  to  the 
Drawing  Chamber  where  my  Lady  Derby  told  the  Queen 
how  my  business  stood,  and  that  I  was  to  go  to  the  King, 
so  she  promised  me  she  would  do  all  the  good  in  it  she  could. 
When  I  had  stayed  but  a  little  while  there  I  was  sent  for  out, 
my  Lord  and  I  going  through  my  Lord  Buckingham's 
chamber,  who  brought  us  into  the  King,  being  in  the 
Drawing  Chamber.  He  put  out  all  those  that  were  there,  and 
my  Lord  and  I  kneeled  by  his  chair  side,  when  he  persuaded 
us  both  to  peace  and  to  put  the  whole  matter  wholly  into  his 
hands,  which  my  Lord  consented  to,  but  I  beseeched  His 
Majesty  to  pardon  me/or  that  I  would  never  ^  art  from  West- 
moreland while  I  lived  upon  any  condition  whatsoever,  some- 
times he  used  fair  means  and  persuasions  and  sometimes  foul 
means,  but  I  was  resolved  before,  so,  as  nothing  would  move 
me,  from  the  King  we  went  to  the  Queen's  side,  and  brought 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

my   Lady    St.   John    to    her    lodging    and   so    we    went 
home. 

There  is  a  little  note  at  the  side  of  this  entry  :  **  The 
Queen  gave  me  warning  not  to  trust  my  matters  abso- 
lutely to  the  King  lest  he  should  deceive  me." 

The  affair  was  not  allowed  to  rest  there.  Two  days 
later  she  was  again  summoned  before  the  King,  and  a 
sour,  unedifying  spectacle  the  majesty  of  James  I  must 
have  presented,  thus  confronted  with  the  young 
obstinacy  of  the  heiress  of  Westmoreland  : 

I  was  sent  for  up  to  the  King  into  his  Drawing  Chamber, 
where  the  door  was  locked  and  nobody  suffered  to  stay  here 
but  my  Lord  and  I,  my  Uncle  Cumberland,  my  Coz  : 
Clifford,  my  Lords  Arundel,  Pembroke  and  Montgomery, 
Sir  John  Digby.  For  lawyers  there  were  my  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Montague,  and  Hobart  Yelverton  the  King's 
Solicitor,  Sir  Randal  Crewe  that  was  to  speak  for  my  Lord 
and  L  The  King  asked  us  all  if  we  would  submit  to  his 
judgement  in  this  case,  my  uncle  Cumberland,  my  Coz  : 
Clifford,  and  my  Lord  answered  they  would,  but  I  would 
never  agree  to  it  without  Westmoreland,  at  which  the  King 
grew  in  a  great  chaff.  My  Lord  of  Pembroke  and  the  King's 
solicitor  speaking  much  against  me,  at  last  when  they  saw 
there  was  no  remedy,  my  Lord,  fearing  the  King  would  do 
me  some  public  disgrace,  desired  Sir  John  Digby  would  open 
the  door,  who  went  out  with  me  and  persuaded  me  much  to 
yield  to  the  King.  Presently  after  my  Lord  came  from  the 
King,  when  it  was  resolved  that  if  I  would  not  come  to  an 
agreement  there  should  be  an  agreement  made  without  me. 

After  these  encounters  she  retired  to  Knole,  while 
Dorset  remained  in  London,  "  being  in  extraordinary 
grace  and  favour  with  the  King."  She,  poor  thing, 
resumed  at  Knole  the  pitiful  monotony  of  her  country 
existence,  which  to  a  mind  so  vigorous  must  have  been 
irksome  in  the  extreme,  and  the  Diary  becomes  again 

66 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

the  record  of  her  small  occupations  threaded  with  the 
worry  and  sorrow  of  her  dissensions  with  her  husband. 
It  is  illuminating  that  she  never  criticizes  him  ;  there 
are  references  to  his  "  worth  and  nobleness  of  dis- 
position ";  her  spirit,  although  high  and  emancipated 
enough  to  stand  out  against  the  King  in  the  defence  of 
Westmoreland,  could  not  conceive  revolt  against  the 
subjection  of  matrimony.  It  is  an  idea  which  never 
once  enters  her  head.  She  even  writes  him  a  letter  to 
give  him  *'  humble  thanks  for  his  noble  usage  toward 
me  in  London  "  ;  but  a  very  little  while  after  this 
"  Thomas  Woodgate  came  from  London  and  brought 
a  squirrel  to  the  Child,  and  my  Lord  wrote  me  a  letter 
by  which  I  perceived  my  Lord  was  clean  out  with  me, 
and  how  much  my  enemies  have  wrought  against  me." 
Conscientious  as  she  is,  she  no  longer  finds  enough 
events  to  justify  a  daily  entry.  Perhaps — who  knows  ? 
for  my  part  I  strongly  suspect  it — her  fighting  spirit 
preferred  even  the  ordeals  and  excitements  of  London 
to  the  tedium  of  Knole.  She  has  very  little  to  tell  : 
only  the  gowns  she  wore,  the  books  she  read,  the  games 
she  played  with  the  steward,  and  the  ailments  of  the 
Child. 

At  this  time  I  wore  a  plain  green  flannel  gown  that 
William  Pinn  made  me  and  my  yellow  taffety  waistcoat. 
Rivers  used  to  read  to  me  in  Montaigne's  Essays,  and  Moll 
Neville  in  the  Fairy  Queen.  The  Child  had  a  bitter  fit  of 
her  ague  again  insomuch  I  was  fearful  of  her  that  I  could 
hardly  sleep  all  night  and  I  beseeched  God  Almighty  to  be 
merciful  and  spare  her  life. 

This  ague  of  the  Child's  is  a  constant  preoccupation. 
I  suppose  that  it  was  a  kind  of  convulsion,  for  which 
the  cure  was  a  "  salt  powder  to  put  in  her  beer."  On 
certain  days  a  return  of  it  appears  to  have  been  con- 

67 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

fidently  expected,  for  I  find :  "  upon  the  4th  should 
have  been  the  Child's  fit,  but  she  missed  it,"  and  two 
days  later  she  has  "  a  grudging  of  her  ague."  There  is 
a  good  deal  about  the  Child — never  referred  to  under 
any  other  designation  until  she  attains  her  5th  birth- 
day, after  which  she  is  promoted  to  *'  my  Lady 
Margaret."  The  portrait  of  her  which  is  here  repro- 
duced hangs  over  the  fireplace  in  Lady  Betty  Ger- 
maine's  sitting-room  ;  her  ring  dangles  on  a  ribbon 
round  her  neck,  and  her  hair  is  done  in  an  elaborate 
manner  which  defied  all  my  efforts,  when  I  was  the 
same  age,  to  do  my  own  in  the  same  way. 

She  was  an  amusement  and  a  consolation,  as  well  as 
a  source  of  anxiety,  to  her  mother.  Her  garments  are 
carefully  noted  : 

The  28  th  was  the  first  time  the  Child  put  on  a  pair  of 
whalebone  bodice.  .  .  .  The  Child  put  on  her  red  bays 
coat.  ...  I  cut  the  Child's  strings  from  off  her  coats  and 
made  her  use  togs  alone,  so  as  she  had  two  or  three  falls  at 
first  but  had  no  hurt  with  them.  .  .  .  The  Child  put  on  her 
first  coats  that  were  laced,  with  lace  being  of  red  bays.  .  .  . 
I  began  to  dress  my  head  with  a  roll  without  a  wire.  I  wrote 
not  to  my  Lord  because  he  wrote  not  to  me  since  he  went 
away.  After  supper  I  went  out  with  the  child  who  rode  a 
pie-bald  nag.  The  14th,  the  Child  came  to  lie  with  me  which 
was  the  first  time  that  ever  she  lay  all  night  in  a  bed  with 
me  since  she  was  born  ; 

and  another  time  she  speaks  of  *'  the  time  being  very 
tedious  with  me,  as  having  neither  comfort  nor  com- 
pany, only  the  Child." 

For  the  rest,  she  was  thrown  back  upon  her  own 
resources.  Dorset  came  and  went,  and  in  between 
whiles  there  are  small,  vivid  pictures  of  existence  at 
Knole  : 

After  supper  I  walked  in  the  garden  and  gathered  cherries, 

68 


LADY  MARGARET  SACKVILLE 

Daughter  of  Richard  Sackville,  3RD  Earl  of  Dorset,  and  Lady  Anne  Clifford 

"THE  CHILD" 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Mytens 


KNOLE   IN   THE   REIGN   OF  JAMES   I 

and  talked  with  Josiah  [the  French  page]  who  told  me  he 
thought  all  the  men  in  the  house  loved  me. 

And  again  : 

About  this  time  [April  1 6 1 7]  my  Lord  made  the  steward 
alter  most  of  the  rooms  in  the  house  and  dress  them  up  as 
fine  as  he  could  and  determined  to  make  all  his  old  clothes 
in  purple  stuff  for  the  Gallery  and  Drawing  Chamber. 

March  1 6 17.    c^th.    Couch  puppied  in  the  morning. 

%th.  I  made  an  end  of  reading  Exodus.  After  supper  I 
played  at  Glecko  with  the  steward  as  I  often  do  after  dinner 
and  supper. 

<^th,  I  went  abroad  in  the  garden  and  said  my  prayers  in 
the  standing. 

\oth.  I  was  not  well  at  night,  so  I  ate  a  posset  and  went  to 
bed. 

I  \th.  The  time  grew  tedious,  so  as  I  used  to  go  to  bed 
about  8  o'clock  I  did  lie  a-bed  till  8  the  next  morning. 

i\th.    I  made  an  end  of  my  Irish  stitch  cushion. 

I  c^th.  My  Lord  came  down  to  Buckhurst.  This  day  I  put 
on  my  mourning  grogram  gown  and  intend  to  wear  it  till 
my  mourning  time  is  out,  because  I  was  found  fault  with  for 
wearing  such  ill  clothes. 

lind.    I  began  a  new  Irish  stitch  cushion. 

i\th.   We  made  Rosemary  cakes. 

Two  days  later  Dorset  arrived  from  Buckhurst,  and 
they  walked  together  in  the  park  and  the  garden. 
"  I  wrought  much  within  doors  and  strived  to  sit  as 
merry  a  face  as  I  could  upon  a  discontented  heart"; 
but  in  spite  of  this  entry  they  seem  to  have  remained 
on  fairly  friendly  terms  until  Easter. 

30/>^.  I  spent  in  walking  and  sitting  in  the  park,  having 
my  mind  more  contented  than  it  was  before  my  Lord  came 
from  Buckhurst. 

^th  April.  My  Lord  went  up  to  my  closet  and  said  how 
little  money  I  had  left  contrary  to  all  they  had  told  him, 
sometimes  I  had  fair  words  from  him  and  sometimes  foul, 

69 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

but  I  took  all  patiently,  and  did  strive  to  give  him  as  much 
content  and  assurance  of  my  love  as  I  could  possibly,  yet 
/  told  him  I  would  never  part  with  Westmoreland.  After 
supper,  because  my  Lord  was  sullen  and  not  willing  to  go 
into  the  nursery,  I  had  Mary  bring  the  Child  to  him  in  my 
chamber. 

'jth.    My  Lord  lay  in  my  chamber. 

I  yh.  My  Lord  supped  privately  with  me  in  the  Drawing 
Chamber,  and  had  much  discourse  of  the  manners  of  the 
folks  at  court. 

By  the  i  "jth^  My  Lord  told  me  he  was  resolved  never  to 
move  me  more  in  these  business  because  he  saw  how  fully 
I  was  bent ; 

but  evidently  he  did  not  stick  to  this  good  resolution, 
because,  on  April  20th,  Easter-day,  *'  My  Lord  and 
I  had  a  great  falling-out,"  and  a  few  days  later,  **  This 
night  my  Lord  should  have  lain  with  me,  but  he  and 
I  fell  out  about  matters." 

By  the  next  day,  however,  they  were  friends  again  ; 
they  played  at  Burley  Break  upon  the  lawn  ;  and 
*'  this  night  my  Lord  came  to  lie  in  my  chamber." 
The  next  day,  too,  was  spent  in  peace,  and  she  '*  spent 
the  evening  in  working  and  going  down  to  my  Lord's 
closet,  where  I  sat  and  read  much  in  the  Turkish 
history,  and  Chaucer." 

So  it  goes  on.  It  becomes,  perhaps,  a  little  mono- 
tonous, save  that  it  is  always  so  human,  and  so  modern. 
One  sympathizes  with  her  in  her  weaknesses  even 
more  than  in  her  defiance  ;  when,  for  instance,  she 
writes  amicable  letters  to  all  her  relations-in-law,  send- 
ing them  locks  of  the  Child's  hair,  being  *'  desirous  to 
win  the  love  of  my  Lord's  kindred  by  all  the  fair  means 
I  could,"  in  reality  stealing  a  march  upon  Dorset  in 
order  to  get  them  on  her  side.  One  day  she  chronicles, 
"  This  night  I  went  into  a  bath,"  but  whether  this 

70 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  I 

event  was  of  such  rarity  as  to  deserve  special  mention  is 
not  explained.  At  Whitsuntide  they  all  went  to  church, 
but  *'  my  eyes  were  so  blubbered  with  weeping  that 
I  could  scarce  look  up,"  and  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
same  day  they  again  "  fell  out."  But  she  consoles  her- 
self with  new  clothes — or  was  that  an  additional 
penance  ?  for  she  was  never  given  to  personal  vanity — 
'*  I  essayed  on  my  sea-water  green  satin  gown  and  my 
damask  embroidered  with  gold,  both  which  gowns  the 
tailor  which  was  sent  from  London  made  fit  for  me  to 
wear  with  open  ruffs  after  the  French  fashion."  Little 
peace-offerings  came  from  time  to  time  from  Dorset ; 
on  one  occasion  he  sends  '*  half  a  buck,  with  an 
indifferent  kind  letter,"  and  on  another  occasion  *'  My 
Lord  sent  Adam  to  trim  the  Child's  hair,  and  sent  me 
the  dewselts  of  two  deer  and  wrote  me  a  letter  between 
kindness  and  unkindness."  "  Still  working  and  being 
extremely  melancholy  "  is  the  entry  of  one  summer 
day,  and  a  day  later,  "  Still  working  and  sad."  A 
little  after  this  she  "  rode  on  horseback  to  Withyham 
to  see  my  Lord  Treasurer's  tomb,  and  went  down  into 
the  vault,  and  came  home  again  [to  Knole]  weeping 
the  most  part  of  the  day."  This  is  perhaps  not  very 
surprising.  I  have  been  down  into  that  vault  myself, 
and  it  is  not  a  cheerful  expedition.  In  a  small,  dark  cave 
underground,  beneath  the  church,  among  grey  veils 
of  cobwebs,  the  coffins  of  the  Sackvilles  are  stacked  on 
shelves  ;  they  go  back  to  the  fourteenth  century,  and 
are  of  all  sizes,  from  full-grown  men  down  to  the  tiny 
ones  lapped  in  lead.  But,  of  course,  when  Anne 
Clifford  went  there  there  were  not  so  many  as  there 
are  now  ;  the  pompous  ones  were  not  yet  in  their 
places,  with  their  rusty  coronets,  save  those  of  the  old 
Treasurer  and  his  son  ;    and  their  blood  did  not  run 

71 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

in  the  veins  of  Lady  Anne,  so  on  the  whole  she  had 
less  reason  to  be  impressed  than  I. 

The  Diary  continues  in  very  much  the  same  strain 
until  it  comes  to  an  end  with  December  1619,  the  year 
1 61 8  being  entirely  missed  out.  By  that  time  both 
Dorset  and  Anne  were  in  bad  health  ;  but  whereas  he 
was  to  die  five  years  later,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five, 
she,  made  of  tougher  stuff,  was  to  survive  him  by 
fifty-two  years.  His  last  letter  to  her,  written  to  her 
on  the  very  day  of  his  death,  shows  all  the  affection 
which  was  so  undermined   by  that  question  of  her 

lands  : 

%^th  March  J  1624.. 
Sweet  Heart, 

I  thank  you  for  your  letter.  I  had  resolved  to  come 
down  to  Knole,  and  to  have  received  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
but  God  hath  prevented  it  with  sickness,  for  on  Wednesday 
night  I  fell  into  a  fit  of  casting,  which  held  me  long,  then 
last  night  I  had  a  fit  of  fever.  I  have  for  my  physician  Dr. 
Baskerville  and  Dr.  Fox.  I  thank  God  I  am  now  at  good  ease, 
having  rested  well  this  morning.  I  would  not  have  you 
trouble  yourself  till  I  have  occasion  to  send  for  you.  You 
shall  in  the  meantime  hear  daily  from  me.  So,  with  my  love 
to  you,  and  God's,  blessing  and  mine  to  both  my  children, 
I  commend  you  to  God's  protection. 

Your  assured  loving  husband 

RICHARD   DORSET. 

**  His  debts,"  says  one  Chamberlain,  writing  to  Sir 
Dudley  Carleton,  "  are  ^^60,000,  so  that  he  does  not 
leave  much."  In  his  will  he  bequeaths  to  his  "  dearly 
beloved  wife  all  her  wearing  apparel  and  such  rings  and 
jewels  as  were  hers  on  her  marriage,  and  the  rock  ruby 
ring  which  I  have  given  her,"  also  "  my  carriage 
made  by  MefByn,  lined  with  green  cloth  and  laced 
with  green  and  black  silk  lace,  and  my  six  bay  coach 
geldings." 

72 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN   OF  JAMES   I 

§  iii 

Her  portraits  change  as  her  years  advance,  and  the 
Hnes  of  determination  harden  about  her  mouth.  Her 
true  Hfe — the  life  for  which  she  was  most  truly  fitted — 
only  began  after  she  had  passed  her  fiftieth  year,  when 
with  the  death  of  her  kinsman  Lord  Cumberland  the 
northern  estates  passed  calmly  and  naturally  into  her 
hands  at  last.  All  the  quarrels  and  litigation  and 
anxiety  of  her  youth  were  left  behind  her  ;  she  had 
buried  Lord  Dorset;  she  had  buried  Lord  Pembroke 
after  a  second  marriage  as  disastrous  and  as  contentious 
as  the  first  ;  she  had  borne  Sackville  children  and 
Herbert  children  ;  she  had  been  long-suffering  though 
adamant,  submissive  though  immovable  ;  she  had 
moped  in  the  sumptuous  prisons  that  were  Knole  and 
Wilton  ;  now  she  was  free  to  turn  tyrant  herself  over 
her  own  undisputed  realm.  She  wasted  nothing  of  the 
opportunity.  Away  from  London,  away  from  the 
influence  of  the  Court,  entrenched  in  her  numerous 
castles  in  the  North,  she  ruled  autocratically  over  her 
servants,  her  tenants,  her  neighbours,  and  the  genera- 
tions and  ramifications  of  her  family.  No  detail  of 
comings  and  goings,  no  penny  of  expenditure  escaped 
her  vigilant  eye  or  her  recording  pen  ;  and  her  diary, 
that  document  of  intimacy,  autocracy,  piety,  and 
exactitude,  carries  its  entries  down  to  the  very  day 
before  her  death.  With  public  or  political  events  she 
scarcely  ever  concerned  herself,  but  on  the  other  hand 
no  detail  of  her  own  private  life  or  of  the  existence  of 
those  around  her  was  too  small  to  excite  her  comment. 
Whether  her  laundry-maids  went  to  church,  whether 
she  pared  her  finger  and  toe  nails,  whether  her  dog 
puppied,  whether  she  received  letters,  whether  she 

73 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

washed  her  feet  and  legs  (this  is  on  the  22nd  of 
February,  the  last  occasion  being  on  the  13  th  of 
December  preceding),  whether  she  kissed  the  semp- 
stress— all  is  noted  with  the  same  precision  and  gravity. 
No  anniversary  or  coincidence  is  allowed  to  pass 
unobserved.  That  amazing  memory  extended  back 
over  threescore  years  ;  and,  moreover,  she  had  the 
immense  volumes  of  her  notebooks  for  reference,  date 
for  date.  Her  past  was  ever  present  to  her,  the  agree- 
able and  the  disagreeable  merged  into  one  landscape  of 
consonant  tone,  and  whether  she  observes  that  this  day 
sixty  years  ago  she  travelled  with  her  blessed  mother, 
or  fell  out  with  Dorset,  it  is  with  the  same  complacency 
and  satisfaction  at  having  the  tiny  anniversary  to 
record.  This  vigorous  mind  was  not,  perhaps,  planned 
on  a  very  broad  scale.  It  was  self-centred  and  self- 
sufficient  ;  severe  but  not  reckless  ;  no  fine  care- 
lessness endears  her  to  us,  or  surprises  ;  even  her  acts 
of  generosity,  and  they  were  numerous,  are  recorded 
with  the  same  scrupulous  accuracy.  She  could  not  give 
two  shillings  to  a  child  without  setting  it  down.  Her 
generosity,  like  all  her  other  acts,  was  methodical  ;  she 
rewarded  her  servants  for  definite  services  with  extra 
wages  ;  she  kept  ready  to  hand  a  supply  of  little 
presents,  because  it  was  contrary  to  her  ideas  of 
hospitality  that  any  visitor,  however  humble,  should 
go  away  empty-handed,  and  was  careful  to  consider 
what  particular  gift  would  be  most  acceptable  to  the 
recipient,  frequently  choosing  something  of  practical 
utility,  such  as  gloves  or  lengths  of  cloth  for  women, 
money  or  ruffles  for  men  ;  and  these  idiosyncracies 
run  true  all  through  her  character,  for,  conversely, 
although  she  was  prepared  to  be  generous  in  her  treat- 
ment of  others,  she  was  equally  determined  that  she 

74 


KNOLE   IN  THE   REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

herself  should  be  fairly  treated  by  them,  and  frequent 
are  the  entries  in  her  diary  to  this  effect  :  "In  the 
morning  did  I  see  Mr.  Robert  Willison  of  Penrith  paid 
for  a  rundlet  of  sack,  but  I  was  very  angry  with  him 
because  I  thought  it  too  dear,  and  told  him  I  would 
have  no  more  of  him,  and  then  he  slipped  away  from 
me  in  a  good  hurry."  She  would  always  pay  cash  too, 
and  bullied  her  special  almswomen,  whom  she  would 
not  allow  to  ask  for  credit  with  the  tradesmen  of 
Appleby. 

Her  rights  were  her  rights,  and  she  had  always  had  a 
great  idea  of  them.  One  recognizes  the  spirit  that  told 
the  King  she  "  would  never  be  parted  jrom  West- 
moreland^' in  the  old  litigant  that  went  unhesitatingly 
and  repeatedly  to  law  over  niceties  connected  with 
small  portions  of  her  estates,  content  to  spend  large 
sums  of  money  in  lawyers'  fees  if  only  she  could 
succeed — as  she  invariably  did — in  proving  her  point. 
There  is  one  story  which  illustrates  both  her  tenacity 
and  her  humour — the  story  of  a  certain  tenant  whose 
rent  included  a  hen  due  yearly  to  the  lady  of  the 
manor.  This  tribute  he  neglected  to  hand  over.  Lady 
Anne  instantly  had  the  law  on  him,  spent  £400  in 
enforcing  her  claim,  won  her  case,  received  the  hen, 
invited  her  defeated  opponent  to  dinner  with  her,  and 
caused  the  bird  to  be  cooked  for  them  both  as  the 
staple  dish  of  the  meal. 

So  the  tranquil  and  crowded  years  spun  themselves 
out  for  her,  and  she  grew  to  be  an  old  woman  and  a 
contented  one,  for  she  had  attained  at  last  the  existence 
and  occupations  best  suited  to  her.  Her  life  was  full  : 
the  things  which  filled  it  were  small  things,  perhaps, 
but  if  they  satisfied  her  who  should  cavil  ?  Her 
journeyings  alone  occupied  much  of  her  time:   those 

IS 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

extraordinary  progresses  from  castle  to  castle,  she  her- 
self travelling  in  her  horse-litter,  her  ladies  in  the 
coach-and-six,  her  menservants  on  horseback,  her 
women  in  other  coaches,  and  a  rabble  of  small  fry 
following,  so  that  the  miniature  army  which  accom- 
panied her  amounted  sometimes  to  as  many  as  three 
hundred.  Often  this  retinue  would  include  members 
of  her  family,  or  some  of  her  neighbours  ;  they 
travelled  over  the  moors  of  the  North,  by  rough  roads, 
*'  uncouth  and  untrodden,  those  mountainous  and 
almost  impassable  ways,"  stopping  on  the  way  in  those 
highland  villages  which  had  not  yet  been  honoured  by 
a  visit  from  the  great  old  lady  or  received  her  bounty, 
and,  coming  at  the  end  of  the  journey  to  Brougham, 
to  Brough,  to  Barden,  to  Skipton,  to  Pendragon,  or  to 
Appleby,  Lady  Anne  would  receive  her  dependants 
one  by  one  in  her  own  chamber,  give  her  hand  to  the 
men,  kiss  the  women,  and  dismiss  them  again  to  their 
own  homes.  Her  health  was  no  longer  very  good,  but 
that  was  never  allowed  to  deter  her  from  her  plans  : 
her  courage  and  vigour  triumphed  always  over  the 
treacherous  flesh,  greatly  to  the  concern  of  those  about 
her.  On  one  occasion,  travelling  from  Appleby  to 
Brougham,  she  was  delayed  at  the  start  by  a  "  swound- 
ing  fit,"  when  she  had  to  be  carried  to  a  bed  and  laid 
there  near  a  "  great  fire  "  ;  much  persuasion  was  used 
that  she  "  would  not  travel  on  so  sharp  and  cold  a  day, 
but  she,  having  before  fixed  on  that  day,  and  so  much 
company  being  come  purposely  to  wait  on  her,  she 
would  go."  As  she  reached  her  litter,  however,  she 
fainted  again,  "  Yet  as  soon  as  that  fit  was  over  she 
went."  Arrived  at  Brougham  she  fainted  for  the  third 
time,  but  on  being  upbraided  by  her  friends  and 
servants  for  her  stubbornness  in  making  the  journey, 

76 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

she  replied  that  she  knew  she  must  die,  and  it  was  the 
same  thing  to  her  to  die  on  the  way  as  in  her  house, 
in  her  Utter  or  in  her  bed,  and  furthermore  would  not 
acknowledge  any  necessity  why  she  should  live,  but 
saw  every  necessity  for  keeping  to  her  resolution.  *'  If 
she  will,  she  will,  you  may  depend  on't,"  they  said  of 
her,  "  if  she  won't,  she  won't,  and  there's  an  end  on't." 
Now  that  there  was  no  one  to  reproach  her,  as 
Dorset  had  been  accustomed  to  reproach  her,  for  her 
lack  of  finery  and  absence  of  proper  vanity,  she  dressed 
always  in  rough  black  serge,  she  shaved  her  head,  her 
fare  was  of  the  plainest,  and  her  personal  economy  was 
pushed  to  the  length  of  such  small  eccentricities  as 
using  up  every  stray  scrap  of  paper  for  her  corres- 
pondence. One  luxury,  indeed,  she  permitted  herself  : 
she  smoked  a  pipe.  Into  all  the  details  of  her  household 
she  looked  with  a  careful  eye  ;  already  in  the  days 
when  she  was  living  at  Knole  she  had  used  up  Richard 
Dorset's  old  shirts  to  make  clouts  ,  now  at  Appleby 
she  saw  to  the  preserving  of  fruit,  she  had  her  cheeses 
made  at  Brougham,  sixteen  at  a  time,  she  got  her  coal 
from  her  own  pits,  she  had  all  delinquents  into  her  own 
room  and  scolded  them  till  they  were  probably  thank- 
ful to  be  dismissed.  At  the  same  time  she  never  forgot 
those  that  had  served  her  faithfully  ;  she  would  send 
her  own  coach  to  bring  some  old  retainer  to  visit  her  ; 
the  marriages,  morals,  and  vicissitudes  of  her  meanest 
servant  were  a  matter  of  interest  to  her  ;  their  marriage 
portions  she  made  her  own  affair.  Besides  her  servants, 
her  own  family  gave  her  much  food  for  thought  and 
preoccupation  :  it  is  true  that  of  her  seven  children 
only  two — her  two  Sackville  daughters — had  lived  to 
grow  up,  but  they  by  now  had  produced  a  cohort  of 
grandchildren,  whose  visits    to   Lady  Anne  were   a 

77 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

source  of  infinite  pleasure  to  the  old  lady.  It  is,  alto- 
gether, a  pleasant  and  seemly  end  to  such  a  life.  She 
had  attained  the  great  age  of  eighty-six  ;  her  diary 
was  filled  with  religious  references  ;  she  never  dwelt 
upon  her  death,  but  it  is  clear  that  she  can  never  for 
one  moment  have  dreaded  it.  She  had  lived  up  con- 
sistently to  her  principles  and  to  her  motto  :  *'  Pre- 
serve your  loyalty,  defend  your  rights,"  and  was  ready 
to  go  whenever  the  call  should  come.  "  I  went  not  out 
all  this  day,"  is  the  last  entry  in  her  diary,  and  the  next 
day  (22nd  of  March  1676),  there  is  an  entry  in 
another  hand,  "  The  22nd  day  the  Countess  died." 


a  Catalogue 

of  the  Household  and  Family  of  the  Right  Honourable 
RICHARD,  EARL  of  DORSET,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1 6 1 3  ;  and  so  continued  until  the  year  1 624,  at  Knole, 
in  Kent. 

At   MY   lord's   table 

My  Lord  My  Lady 

My  Lady  Margaret  My  Lady  Isabella 

Mr.  Sackville  Mr.  Frost 

John  Musgrave  Thomas  Garret 

At    THE     PARLOUR     TABLE 

Mrs.  Field  Mrs.  Willoughby 

Mrs.  Grimsditch  Mrs.  Stewkly 

Mrs.  Fletcher  Mrs.  Wood 

Mr.  Dupper,  Chaplain 

Mr.  Matthew  Caldicott,  my  Lord' s  favourite 
Mr.  Edward  Legge,  Steward 
Mr.  Peter  Basket,  Gentleman  of  the  Horse 
Mr.  Marsh,  Attendant  on  my  Lady 

78 


KNOLE   IN  THE   REIGN  OF  JAMES   I 

Mr.  Wooldridge 

Mr.  Cheyney 

Mr.  Duck,  Page 

Mr.  Josiah  Cooper,  a  Frenchman^  P^g^ 

Mr.  John  Belgrave,  Page 

Mr.  Billingsley 

Mr.  Graverner,  Gentleman  Usher 

Mr.  Marshall,  Auditor 

Mr.  Edwards,  Secretary 

Mr.  Drake,  Attendant 


At    TYiY.     clerks'     table     IN     THE     HALL 

Edward  Fulks  and  John  Edwards,  Clerks  of  the  Kitchen 

Edward  Care,  Master  Cook 

William  Smith,  Yeoman  of  the  Buttery 

Henry  Keble,  Yeoman  of  the  Pantry 

John  Mitchell,  Pastryman 

Thomas  Vinson,  Cook 

John  Elnor,  Cook 

Ralph  Hussie,  Cook 

John  Avery,  Usher  of  the  Hall 

Robert  Elnor,  Slaughterman 

Benjamin  Staples,  Groom  of  the  Great  Chamber 

Thomas  Petley,  Brewer 

William  Turner,  Baker 

Francis  Steeling,  Gardener 

Richard  Wicking,  Gardener 

Thomas  Clements,  Under  Brewer 

Samuel  Vans,  Caterer 

Edward  Small,  Groom  of  the  Wardrobe 

Samuel  Southern,  Under  Baker 

Lowry,  a  French  boy 


THE     NURSERY 

Nurse  Carpenter  Widow  Ben 

Jane  Sisley  Dorothy  Pickenden 

79 


KNOLE   AND  THE   SACKVILLES 

At    THE     LONG     TABLE     IN     THE     HALL 

Robert  Care,  Attendant  on  my  Lord 
Mr.  Gray,  Attendant  likewise 

Mr.  Roger  Cook,  Attendant  on  my  Lady  Margaret 
Mr.  Adam  Bradford,  Barber 
Mr.  John  Guy,  Groom  of  my  Lord's  Bedchamber 
Walter  Comestone,  Attendant  on  my  Lady 
Edward  Lane,  Scrivener 
Mr.  Thomas  Poor,  Yeoman  of  the  Wardrobe 
Mr.  Thomas  Leonard,  Master  Huntsman 
Mr.  Woodgate,  Yeoman  of  the  Great  Chamber 
John  Hall,  Falconer 
James  Flennel,  Yeoman  of  the  Granary 
Rawlinson,  Armourer 
Moses  Shonk,  Coachman 
Anthony  Ashly,  Groom  of  the  Great  Horse 
Griffin  Edwards,  Groom  of  my  Lady  s  Horse 
Francis  Turner,  Groom  of  the  Great  Horse 
William  Grynes,      „  „        ,,         ,, 

Acton  Curvett,  Chief  Footman 
James  Loveall,  Footman 
Sampson  Ashley, 
William  Petley, 
Nicholas  James, 
Paschal  Beard, 
Elias  Thomas, 
Henry  Spencer,  Farrier 
Edward  Goodsall 
John  Sant,  the  Steward's  Man 
Ralph  Wise,  Groom  of  the  Stables 
Thomas  Petley,  Under  Farrier 
John  Stephens,  the  Chaplain  s  Man 
John  Haite,  Groom  for  the  Stranger  s  Horse 
Thomas  Giles,  Groom  of  the  Stables 
Richard  Thomas,  Groom  of  the  Hall 
Christopher  Wood,  Groom  of  the  Pantry 
George  Owen,  Huntsman 
George  Vigeon,       „ 
Thomas  Grittan,  Groom  of  the  Buttery 

80 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN   OF  JAMES  I 

Solomon,  the  Bird-Catcher 

Richard  Thornton,  the  Coachman's  Man 

Richard  Pickenden,  Postillion 

William  Roberts,  Groom 

The  Armourer's  Man 

Ralph  Wise,  his  Servant 

John  Swift,  the  Porter  s  Man 

John  Atkins       )   ,^  , 

Clement  Doory  ]  ^'"^  ''  '^^^-^  ^^^^ 

THE     laundry-maids'     TABLE 

Mrs.  Judith  Simpton 

Mrs.  Grace  Simpton 

Penelope  Tutty,  the  Lady  Margaret's  Maid 

Anne  Mills,  Dairy-Maid 

Prudence  Bucher 

Anne  Howse 

Faith  Husband 

Elinor  Thompson 

Goodwife  Burton 

Grace  Robinson,  a  Blackamoor 

Goodwife  Small 

William  Lewis,  Porter 

KITCHEN    AND     SCULLERY 

Diggory  Dyer 

Marfidy  Snipt 

John  Watson 

Thomas  Harman 

Thomas  Johnson 

John  Morockoe,  a  Blackamoor 


8i 


CHAPTER   V 

Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  I 

EDWARD    SACKVILLE 

4th 

Earl  oj  Dorset 

§i 

THE  wreckage  of  Richard's  estates  devolved  at 
his  death  upon  his  brother  Edward,  who  at  that 
time  was  travelling  in  Italy.  This  Edward 
Sackville  was  once  to  me  the  embodiment  of  Cavalier 
romance.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  I  wrote  an  enormous 
novel  about  him  and  his  two  sons.  He  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  starting  with  Vandyck's  portrait  in  the  hall, 
the  flame-coloured  doublet,  the  blue  Garter,  the 
characteristic  swaggering  attitude,  the  sword,  the  love- 
locks, the  key  of  office  painted  dangling  from  his  hip 
and  the  actual  key  dangling  on  a  ribbon  from  the 
frame  of  the  picture — and  then  the  account  of  his  duel 
with  Lord  Bruce,  his  devotion  to  Charles  I,  the 
plundering  raid  of  Cromwell's  soldiers  into  Knole,  the 
murder  of  his  younger  son  by  the  Roundheads,  the 
picture  of  the  two  boys  throwing  dice — all  this  was  a 
source  of  rich  romance  to  a  youthful  imagination 
nourished  on  Cyrano  and  The  Three  Musketeers.  I 
used  to  steal  up  to  the  attics  to  examine  the  old  nail- 
studded  trunks  from  which  the  Roundheads  had 
broken  off  the  locks.  There  they  were — the  visible 
evidence  of  the  old  paper  in  the  Muniment  Room, 
which  said,  "  They  have  broken  open  six  trunks;  in 
one  of  them  was  money ;  what  is  lost  of  it  we  know  not, 
in  regard  the  keeper  of  it  is  from  home."   There  they 

82 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

were,  carelessly  stacked :  on  one  of  them  was  stabbed 
the  date  in  big  nails,  1623;  and  there  were  others, 
curved  to  fit  the  roof  of  a  barouche ;  of  later  date  these, 
but  all  intimate  and  palpitating  to  a  very  ignorant 
child  to  whom  the  centuries  meant  Thomas  or  Richard 
or  Edward  Sackville;  Holbein,  Vandyck  or  Reynolds; 
farthingale  chairs  or  love-seats.  What  were  dates  when 
the  centuries  went  by  generations  ?  The  battered 
trunks  were  stacked  near  the  entrance  to  the  hiding- 
place,  which,  without  the  smallest  justification  save  an 
old  candlestick  and  a  rope-ladder  found  therein,  I 
peopled  with  the  fugitive  figures  of  priests  and 
Royalists.  I  peeped  into  the  trunks:  they  contained 
only  a  dusty  jumble  of  broken  ironwork,  some  old 
books,  some  bits  of  hairy  plaster  fallen  from  the  ceiling, 
some  numbers  of  Punch  for  1850.  Nevertheless,  there 
were  the  gaping  holes  where  the  locks  had  been  prised 
off  the  trunks,  and  the  lid  forced  back  upon  the  hinges 
by  an  impatient  hand.  Down  in  the  Poets'  Parlour, 
where  I  lunched  with  my  grandfather,  taciturn  unless 
he  happened  to  crack  one  of  his  little  stock-in-trade  of 
jokes,  Cromwell's  soldiers  had  held  their  Court  of 
Sequestration.  The  Guard  Room  was  empty  of  arms 
or  armour,  save  for  a  few  pikes  and  halberds,  because 
Cromwell's  soldiers  had  taken  all  the  armour  away. 
The  past  mingled  with  the  present  in  constant 
reminder;  and  out  in  the  summer-house,  after 
luncheon,  with  the  bees  blundering  among  the  flowers 
of  the  Sunk  Garden  and  the  dragon-flies  flashing  over 
the  pond,  I  returned  to  the  immense  ledger  in  which 
I  was  writing  my  novel,  while  Grandpapa  retired  to 
his  little  sitting-room  and  whittled  paper-knives  from 
the  lids  of  cigar-boxes,  and  thought  about — Heaven 
knows  what  he  thought  about. 

83 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Edward  Sackville  in  the  big  Vandyck  was  indeed  a 
handsome,  rubicund  figure,  **  beautiful,  graceful,  and 
vigorous  .  .  .  the  vices  he  had  were  of  the  age,  which 
he  was  not  stubborn  enough  to  resist  or  to  condemn." 
What  these  vices  were  I  do  not  know;  the  records  of 
his  life  make  no  allusion  to  them.  It  is  true  that  the 
cause  of  his  duel  remains  a  mystery;  Lord  Clarendon 
knew  it,  but  beyond  mentioning  that  it  was  fought  on 
account  of  a  lady,  kept  his  own  counsel.  It  is  true  also 
that  his  sister-in-law.  Lady  Anne  Clifford,  disliked  him 
greatly  and  spoke  of  the  malice  he  had  always  shown 
towards  her;  but  then  amicable  relationship  with  Lady 
Anne  was  not  easily  sustained.  On  the  face  of  it,  his  life 
seems  to  have  been  loyal  and  honourable :  he  suffered 
considerably  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  he  had  at  heart, 
and  his  few  speeches  and  letters  are  full  of  reserve  and 
dignity,  supported  by  the  facts  of  his  own  misfortunes; 
I  do  not  see  what  more  he  could  have  done  to  deserve 
the  adjective  staunch.  To  me  at  thirteen  he  was  very 
staunch  and  doughty,  and  one  does  not  willingly  go 
back  on  one's  first  impressions.  His  wife,  too,  in  the 
pointed  stomacher,  and  the  shoes  with  huge  rosettes, 
governess  to  the  royal  children,  voted  a  public  funeral 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  was  another  staunch  figure: 
severe,  uncompromising,  but  impeccable. 

The  duel  with  Lord  Bruce  was  fought  when  Edward 
Sackville  was  twenty-three  years  old,  at  Bergen-op- 
Zoom  in  Holland,  which  so  late  as  1814  still  went  by 
the  name  of  Bruceland.  In  the  Knole  Muniment 
room  a  paper  cover  was  found  upon  which  was 
written  *'  The  relation  of  my  Lord's  duel  with 
the  Lord  Bruce,"  and  the  following  are  in  all 
probability  the  papers  originally  contained  therein. 
The  *'  Worthy  sir  "  to  whom  the  letter  is  addressed 

84 


EDWARD  SACKVILLE,  4TH  Earl  of  Dorset,  K.G. 
From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Vandyck 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES  I 

remains  anonymous,  but  was  evidently  some   friend 
in  England: 

Worthy  Sir, 

AS  I  am  not  ignorant,  so  I  ought  to  be  sensible  of  the 
/\  false  aspersions  some  authorless  tongues  have  laid  upon 
JL  \.me  in  the  reports  of  the  unfortunate  passage  lately  hap- 
pened between  the  Lord  Bruce  and  myself,  which,  as  they 
are  spread  here,  so  I  may  justly  fear  they  reign  also  where  you 
are.  There  are  but  two  ways  to  resolve  doubts  of  this  nature, 
by  oath  and  by  sword. 

The  first  is  due  to  magistrates,  and  communicable  to 
friends  ;  the  other  to  such  as  maliciously  slander,  and 
impudently  defend  their  assertions.  Your  love,  not  my 
merit,  assures  me  you  hold  me  your  friend  ;  which  esteem 
I  am  much  desirous  to  retain.  Do  me,  therefore,  the  right 
to  understand  the  truth  of  that ;  and,  in  my  behalf,  inform 
others,  who  either  are  or  may  be  infected  with  sinister 
rumours,  much  prejudicial  to  that  fair  opinion  I  desire  to 
hold  amongst  all  worthy  persons  ;  and,  on  the  faith  of  a 
gentleman,  the  relation  I  shall  give  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  bare  truth.  The  enclosed  contains  the  first  citation 
sent  me  from  Paris  by  a  Scottish  gentleman,  who  delivered 
it  me  in  Derbyshire,  at  my  father-in-law's  house.  After  it 
follows  my  then  answer,  returned  him  by  the  same  bearer. 
The  next  is  my  accomplishment  of  my  first  promise,  being 
a  particular  assignation  of  place  and  weapon,  which  I  sent 
by  a  servant  of  mine,  by  post,  from  Rotterdam,  as  soon  as  I 
landed  there,  the  receipt  of  which,  joined  with  an  acknow- 
ledgement of  my  fair  carriage  to  the  deceased  Lord,  is 
testified  by  the  last,  which  periods  the  business  till  we  met  at 
Tergose,  in  Zealand,  it  being  the  place  allotted  for  rendez- 
vous ;  where  he  [accompanied  with  one  Mr.  Crawford,  an 
English  gentleman,  for  his  second,  a  surgeon,  and  his  man] 
arrived  with  all  the  speed  he  could.  And  there  having 
rendered  himself,  I  addressed  my  second,  Sir  John  Heydon, 
to  let  him  understand  that  now  all  following  should  be  done 
by  consent,  as  concerning  the  terms  whereon  we  should  fight, 
as  also  the  place.  To  our  seconds  we  gave  power  for  their 
appointments,  who  agreed  that  we  should  go  to  Antwerp, 

85 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

from  thence  to  Bergen-op-Zoom,  where  in  the  midway  a 
village  divides  the  States'  territories  from  the  Archduke's  ; 
and  there  was  the  destined  stage,  to  the  end,  that,  having 
ended,  he  that  could  might  presently  exempt  himself  from 
the  justice  of  the  country,  by  retiring  into  the  dominion  not 
offended.  It  was  further  concluded,  that  in  case  any  should 
fall  or  slip,  that  then  the  combat  should  cease  ;  and  he, 
whose  ill  fortune  had  so  subjected  him,  was  to  acknowledge 
his  life  to  have  been  in  the  other's  hands.  But  in  case  one 
party's  sword  should  break,  because  that  could  only  chance 
by  hazard,  it  was  agreed  that  the  other  should  take  no 
advantage,  but  either  then  be  made  friends,  or  else,  upon 
even  terms,  go  to  it  again.  Thus  these  conclusions,  being 
by  each  of  them  related  to  his  party,  were,  by  us,  both 
approved  and  assented  to.  Accordingly  we  embarked  for 
Antwerp  ;  and  by  reason  my  Lord  [as  I  conceive,  because 
he  could  not  handsomely  without  danger  of  discovery]  had 
not  paired  the  sword  I  sent  him  to  Paris,  bringing  one  of  the 
same  length,  but  twice  as  broad,  my  second  excepted  against 
it,  and  advised  me  to  match  my  own,  and  send  him  the 
choice  ;  which  I  obeyed,  it  being,  you  know,  the  challenger's 
privilege  to  elect  his  weapon.  At  the  delivery  of  the  swords, 
which  was  performed  by  Sir  John  Heydon,  it  pleased  the 
Lord  Bruce  to  choose  my  own  ;  and  then,  past  expectation, 
he  told  him  that  he  found  himself  so  far  behind-hand,  as  a 
little  of  my  blood  would  not  serve  his  turn  ;  and  therefore 
he  was  now  resolved  to  have  me  alone,  because  he  knew  [for 
I  will  use  his  own  words]  that  so  worthy  a  gentleman,  and 
my  friend,  could  not  endure  to  stand  by,  and  see  him  do  that 
which  he  must,  to  satisfy  himself  and  his  honour.  There- 
unto Sir  John  Heydon  replied,  that  such  intentions  were 
bloody  and  butcherly,  far  unfitting  so  noble  a  personage, 
who  should  desire  to  bleed  for  reputation,  not  for  life  ; 
withal  adding,  he  thought  himself  injured,  being  come  thus 
far,  now  to  be  prohibited  from  executing  those  honourable 
offices  he  came  for.  The  Lord  Bruce,  for  answer,  only 
reiterated  his  former  resolution  ;  the  which,  not  for  matter, 
but  for  manner,  so  moved  me,  as  though  to  my  remembrance 
I  had  not  for  a  long  while  eaten  more  liberally  than  at 
dinner  ;  and  therefore,  unfit  for  such  an  action  [seeing  the 

86 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

surgeons  hold  a  wound  upon  a  full  stomach  much  more 
dangerous  than  otherwise],  I  requested  my  second  to  certify 
him  I  would  presently  decide  the  difference,  and  should 
therefore  meet  him,  on  horseback,  only  waited  on  by  our 
surgeons,  they  being  unarmed.  Together  we  rode  [but  one 
before  the  other  some  twelve  score]  about  two  English 
miles  ;  and  then  Passion,  having  so  weak  an  enemy  to  assail 
as  my  direction,  easily  became  victor  ;  and,  using  his  power, 
made  me  obedient  to  his  commands.  I  being  very  mad  with 
anger  the  Lord  Bruce  should  thirst  after  my  life  with  a  kind 
of  assuredness,  seeing  I  had  come  so  far  and  needlessly  to 
give  him  leave  to  regain  his  lost  reputation,  I  bade  him 
alight,  which  with  all  willingness  he  quickly  granted  ;  and 
there,  in  a  meadow  [ankle-deep  in  the  water  at  least], 
bidding  farewell  to  our  doublets,  in  our  shirts  we  began  to 
charge  each  other,  having  afore  commanded  our  surgeons 
to  withdraw  themselves  a  pretty  distance  from  us  ;  conjuring 
them  besides,  as  they  respected  our  favour  or  their  own 
safeties,  not  to  stir,  but  suffer  us  to  execute  our  pleasure  ;  we 
being  fully  resolved  [God  forgive  us]  to  despatch  each  other 
by  what  means  we  could.  I  made  a  thrust  at  my  enemy,  but 
was  short ;  and,  in  drawing  back  my  arm,  I  received  a 
great  wound  thereon,  which  I  interpreted  as  a  reward  for  my 
short  shooting  ;  but,  in  revenge,  I  pressed  in  to  him,  though 
I  then  missed  him  also  ;  and  then  received  a  wound  in  my 
right  pap,  which  passed  level  through  my  body,  and  almost  to 
my  back  ;  and  there  we  wrestled  for  the  two  greatest  and  dear- 
est prizes  we  could  ever  expect,  trial  for  honour  and  life  ;  in 
which  struggling,  my  hand,  having  but  an  ordinary  glove  on 
it,  lost  one  of  her  servants,  though  the  meanest,  which  hung 
by  a  skin,  and,  to  sight,  yet  remaineth  as  before,  and  I  am 
put  in  hope  one  day  to  recover  the  use  of  it  again.  But  at 
last  breathless,  yet  keeping  our  holds,  there  passed  on  both 
sides  propositions  for  quitting  each  other's  sword.  But, 
when  Amity  was  dead.  Confidence  could  not  live,  and  who 
should  quit  first  was  the  question,  which  on  neither  part 
either  would  perform  ;  and,  re-striving  again  afresh,  with  a 
kick  and  a  wrench  together  I  freed  my  long-captive  weapon, 
which  incontinently  levying  at  his  throat,  being  master  still 
of  his,  I  demanded  if  he  would  ask  his  life  or  yield  his 

87 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

sword  ?  Both  which,  though  in  that  imminent  danger,  he 
bravely  denied  to  do.  Myself  being  wounded,  and  feehng 
loss  of  blood,  having  three  conduits  running  on  me,  began  to 
make  me  faint ;  and  he  courageously  persisting  not  to  accord 
to  either  of  my  propositions,  remembrance  of  his  former 
bloody  desire,  and  feeling  of  my  present  estate,  I  struck  at 
his  heart ;  but,  with  his  avoiding,  missed  my  aim,  yet  passed 
through  his  body,  and,  drawing  back  my  sword,  repassed  it 
through  again  through  another  place,  when  he  cried,  "  Oh, 
I  am  slain  !  "  seconding  his  speech  with  all  the  force  he  had 
to  cast  me.  But  being  too  weak,  after  I  had  defended  his 
assault,  I  easily  became  master  of  him,  laying  him  on  his 
back  ;  when  being  upon  him,  I  redemanded  if  he  would 
request  his  life  ?  But  it  seems  he  prized  it  not  at  so  dear  a 
rate  to  be  beholden  for  it,  bravely  replying  "  He  scorned  it  I  " 
which  answer  of  his  was  so  noble  and  worthy,  as  I  protest 
I  could  not  find  in  my  heart  to  offer  him  any  more  violence, 
only  keeping  him  down,  till,  at  length,  his  surgeon  afar  off 
cried  out,  "  He  would  immediately  die  if  his  wounds  were 
not  stopped !  "  whereupon  I  asked,  "if  he  desired  his 
surgeon  should  come  ?  "  which  he  accepted  of ;  and  so  being 
drawn  away,  I  never  offered  to  take  his  sword,  accounting 
it  inhumane  to  rob  a  dead  man,  for  so  I  held  him  to  be. 
This  thus  ended,  I  retired  to  my  surgeon,  in  whose  arms, 
after  I  had  remained  awhile  for  want  of  blood,  I  lost  my  sight, 
and  withal,  as  I  then  thought,  my  life  also.  But  strong  water 
and  his  diligence  quickly  recovered  me  ;  when  I  escaped  a 
great  danger,  for  my  Lord's  surgeon,  when  nobody  dreamt 
of  it,  came  full  at  me  with  his  Lord's  sword  ;  and  had  not 
mine  with  my  sword  interposed  himself,  I  had  been  slain 
by  those  base  hands,  although  my  Lord  Bruce,  weltering  in 
his  blood,  and  past  all  expectation  of  life,  conformable  to  all 
his  former  carriage,  which  was  undoubtedly  noble,  cried  out 
"  Rascal,  hold  thy  hand  !  "  So  may  I  prosper,  as  I  have 
dealt  sincerely  with  you  in  this  relation,  which  I  pray  you, 
with  the  enclosed  letter,  deliver  to  my  Lord  Chamberlain. 
And  so,  etc., 

Yours, 

EDWARD  SACKVILLE. 

LovAiN,  the  Sth  September,  1613 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES  I 

The  citations  or  letters  mentioned  above  to  be 
enclosed  in  this  account  of  Mr.  Sackville  are  as 
follows : 

A  Monsieur^  Monsieur  Sackville 

I,  that  am  in  France,  hear  how  much  you  attribute  to 
yourself  in  this  time,  that  I  have  given  the  world  to  ring  your 
praises  ;  and  for  me  the  truest  almanach  to  tell  you  how 
much  I  suffer.  If  you  call  to  memory  when,  as  I  gave  you 
my  hand  last,  I  told  you  I  reserved  the  heart  for  a  truer 
reconciliation,  now  be  that  noble  gentleman  my  love  once 
spoke,  and  come  do  him  right  that  would  recite  the  trials 
you  owe  your  birth  and  country,  where  I  am  confident  your 
honour  gives  you  the  same  courage  to  do  me  right  that  it  did 
to  do  me  wrong.  Be  master  of  your  weapons  and  time  ;  the 
place  wheresoever  I  wait  on  you.  By  doing  this  you  shall 
shorten  revenge,  and  clear  the  idle  opinion  the  world  hath 
of  both  our  worths.  ed.  bruce. 

A  Monsieur^  Monsieur  Baron  de  Kinloss 

As  it  shall  be  far  from  me  to  seek  a  quarrel,  so  will  I  also 
be  ready  to  meet  with  any  that  is  desirous  to  make  trial  of 
my  valour,  by  so  fair  a  course  as  you  require  ;  a  witness 
whereof  yourself  shall  be,  who,  within  a  month,  shall  receive 
a  strict  account  of  time,  place  and  weapon,  where  you  shall 
find  me  ready  disposed  to  give  honourable  satisfaction  by 
him  that  shall  conduct  you  thither.  In  the  meantime  be  as 
secret  of  the  appointment  as  it  seems  you  are  desirous  of  it. 

ED.    sackville. 

A  Monsieur^  Monsieur  Baron  de  Kinloss 

I  am  at  Torgose,  a  town  in  Zealand,  to  give  what  satis- 
faction your  sword  can  render  you,  accompanied  with  a 
worthy  gentleman  for  my  second,  in  degree  a  Knight ;  and 
for  your  coming  I  will  not  limit  you  a  peremptory  day,  but 
desire  you  to  make  a  definite  and  speedy  repair,  for  your  own 
honour  and  fear  of  prevention,  at  which  time  you  shall  find 
me  there.  ed.  sackville. 

Torgose,  i  oth  August^  1 6 1 3 

89 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

A  Monsieur^  Monsieur  Sackville 
I  have  received  your  letter  by  your  man,  and  acknowledge 
you  have  dealt  nobly  with  me,  and  I  come  with  all  possible 
haste  to  meet  you.  e.  bruce. 

Betv^een  this  affair  and  the  date  of  his  succession  to 
his  brother  Richard,  Edward  Sackville  was  employed 
on  various  missions:  he  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
he  was  twice  sent  as  ambassador  to  Louis  XIII,  and  he 
travelled  in  France  and  Italy.  He  was  thus,  when  he 
succeeded,  an  experienced  man  of  thirty-four,  and  he 
pursued,  uninterruptedly,  the  sober  path  of  office,  now 
Lord  Chamberlain,  now  Lord  Privy  Seal,  now  a  Com- 
missioner for  planting  Virginia,  always  in  the  con- 
fidence of  the  King,  and  his  name  affixed  to  State 
documents  of  the  day  in  noble  company.  The  dis- 
graces and  follies  of  his  predecessors  and  of  his 
descendants  were  not  his  lot,  if  that  murderous  duel  is 
to  be  excepted.  My  flaming  Cavalier,  jiamberge  au 
verity  was  in  reality  a  sober  and  consistent  gentleman; 
loyal,  but  not  impetuous;  prejudiced,  but  not  blinded; 
devoted,  but  not  afraid  to  speak  his  mind  in  criticism ; 
and  in  support  of  this  claim  I  shall  presently  quote  from 
one  of  his  speeches  in  which  he  argues  against  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  Civil  War  and  pleads  for  a  prompt 
reconciliation  between  the  King  and  his  Parliament. 
His  judgment  is  acute,  and  his  attitude  remarkably 
sound  and  broad-minded.  Yet  at  the  same  time  his 
devotion  to  the  King  was  such,  that  after  Charles' 
execution  Lord  Dorset  never  passed  beyond  the 
threshold  of  his  own  door. 

There  are  a  few  papers  at  Knole  relating  to  the  years 
before  the  war  began,  and  from  them  one  may  gather 

90 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES  I 

some  idea  of  the  then  manner  of  Ufe,  always  remember- 
ing that  Lord  Dorset  was  much  impoverished  by  the 
extravagance  of  his  brother.  The  total  income  for  the 
year  1628  from  Knole  and  Sevenoaks  was  ^Tioo 
I  Ss.  6d. — a  fifth  part  of  which  was  derived  from  the 
sale  of  rabbits.  Some  details  of  expenses  are  given  in  the 
account-books,  besides  those  which  I  have  already  given 
in  connection  with  the  park  in   the  second  chapter: 

Money   spent   on    the  pale  in    Knole    Park  for   one  year 
(£S   ^s.  Gil.)  as  follows  :  ^ 

For  filling,   cleaning,   and   making  six   loads 

of  pale  rails,  posts,  and  shores,  two  men  080 

Setting  up  panels  of  pales,  blown  down  by 

the  wind  against  Riverhill,  I  o<^.  day  each  man    050 

Paid  a  labourer  for  spreading  the  mole  hills 

in  the  meads  and  for  killing  moles  043 

The  steward  of  Sevenoaks  was  paid  ten  shillings  a 

year,  the  bailiff  of  Sevenoaks  ^Tio,  the  steward  of 

Seal  /2  loj-.,  the  bailiff  of  Seal  /a.  . 

^  '  ^^  £     s.  d. 

Four  hundred  nails  for  the  pales  020 

Paid  for  setting  up  pales  at  mock-beech  gate  008 

Paid  toward  repairing  the  market  cross  in 

Sevenoaks  684 

Portions  of  the  park,  such  as  were  not  already  under 
cultivation  of  hops,  were  leased  out  to  farmers  for 

The  joistment'^  of  Knole  Park,  May  1629. 

Of  William  Bloom  for  3  yearlings  i      o     o 

Of  George  Dennis  for  keeping  20  runts  ^  0134 

Of  Richard  Wicking  for  his  kines'  pasture  013      o 

Of  Richard  Fletcher  for  summering  2  colts  016     o 

1  Joistment :  the  feeding  of  cattle  in  a  common  pasture  for  a  stipulated  fee. 
*  Runts :  young  oi  or  cow. 

91 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

There  were  other  sources  of  revenue.  Letters  patent 
granted  an  imposition  of  4j".  per  chaldron  on  all  coal 
exported,  to  be  divided  among  the  Earl  of  Dorset,  the 
Earl  of  Holland,  and  Sir  Job  Harby : 


COAL 


M  POSITIONS 

£ 

s. 

4312 

13 

507 

1 1 

birds 

3805 

I 

d. 


6th  May,  1634 
Deduction  for  expenses 
Rest  to  be  divided  into  thirds 

That  is  to  say,  Dorset's  share  would  be  ^1268  ys.  8^., 
or  more  than  £1 0,000  of  modern  money. 

He  obtained  also  £1 00  a  year  by  devising  to  Richard 
Gunnel  and  William  Blagrave  for  four  and  a  half  years 
a  piece  of  land  at  the  lower  end  of  Salisbury  Court, 
Fleet  Street,  140  feet  in  length  and  42  feet  in  breadth, 
on  condition  that  they  should  at  their  own  expense  put 
up  a  play-house.  What  would  be  the  rent  of  such  a 
piece  of  land  now  in  Fleet  Street  ?  Certainly  not 
^100. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  complained  constantly  of 
his  reduced  income.  Lord  Dorset  added  considerably 
to  the  park.  He  obtained  a  long  lease  of  Seal  Chart,  and 
**  all  woods  and  under-woods  of  the  waste  or  common 
of  the  Manors  of  Seal  and  Kemsing,  viz.,  upon  Rum- 
shott  Common,  Riverhill  Common,  Hubbard  Hill 
Common,  and  Westwood  Common  ...  in  all  at  least 
500  acres." 

More  entertaining  is  the  acquisition  of  an  overseas 
estate — no  less  than  that  part  of  the  east  coast  of 
America  which  to-day  includes  New  York,  Boston,  and 
Philadelphia.  Those  little  manors  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Sevenoaks,  those  500  acres  of  common  land, 
dwindle  suddenly  beside  this  formidable  tenure.   "  An 

92 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES   I 

island   called   Sandy   [Hook]  "   the   petition   casually 
begins: 

An  island  called  Sandy,  lying  near  the  continent  of 
America,  in  the  height  of  44  degrees,  was  lately  discovered  by 
one  Rose,  late  master  of  a  ship,  who  suffered  shipwreck,  and, 
finding  no  inhabitants,  took  possession.  The  Earl  of  Dorset 
prays  a  grant  of  the  said  island  for  thirty-one  years,  and  that 
none  may  adventure  thither  but  such  as  petitioner  shall  license. 

A  second  petition  takes  one's  breath  away  with  its 
magnificent  insolence: 

The  Earl  of  Dorset  to  the  King.  Certain  islands  on  the 
south  of  New  England,  viz  :  Long  Island,  Cole  Island, 
Sandy  Point,  Hell  Gates,  Martin's  [?  Martha's]  Vineyard, 
Elizabeth  Islands,  Block  Island,  with  other  islands  near 
thereunto,  were  lately  discovered  by  some  of  your  Majesty's 
subjects  and  are  not  yet  inhabited  by  Christians.  Prays  a 
grant  thereof  with  like  powers  of  government  as  have  been 
granted  for  other  plantations  in  America. 

Underneath  this  is  scribbled : 

Reference  to  the  Attorney-General  to  prepare  a  grant. 
Whitehall,  20th  Dec,  1637. 

One  would  wish  to  evoke  for  a  brief  hour  the 
spectres  of  those  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  who  found 
these  localities  uninhabited  by  Christians. 

Returning  to  Knole  after  this  seems  paltry;  yet 
even  there  Lord  Dorset  was  conducting  his  affairs  on 
a  proportionately  large  scale.  He  said  himself  that  he 
spent  ^40,000  after  his  son's  marriage,  and  one  can 
believe  it  when  one  reads  a  sample  of  the  bill  of  fare 
provided  for  a  banquet.    At  the  top  is  written: 

To  perfume  the  room  often  in  the  meal  with  orange 
flower  water  upon  a  hot  pan.  To  have  fresh  bowls  in  every 
corner  and  flowers  tied  upon  them,  and  sweet  briar,  stock, 
gilly-flowers,  pinks,  wallflowers  and  any  other  sweet  flowers 
in  glasses  and  pots  in  every  window  and  chimney. 

93 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 


BANQUET    at    KNOLE    yd    July    1636 


1  Rice  Pottage 

2  Barley  broth 
Buttered  pickrell 
Butter  and  burned  eggs 
Boiled  teats 
Roast  tongues 
Bream 
Perches 

Chine  of  Veal  roast 
Hash    of    mutton    with 
Anchovies 
Gr.  Pike 
Fish  chuits  [sic] 

13  Roast  venison,  in  blood 

14  Capons  (2) 

1 5  Wild  ducks  (3) 

16  Salmon  whole,  hot 


3 

4 

5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
10 

1 1 

12 


17  Tenches,  boiled 

18  Crabs 

19  Tench  pie 

20  Venison  pasty  of  a  Doe 

2 1  Swans  (2) 

22  Herons  (3) 

23  Cold  lamb 

24  Custard 

25  Venison,  boiled 

26  Potatoes,  stewed 

27  Gr.  salad 

28  Redeeve  [sic]  pie,  hot 

29  Almond  pudding 

30  Made  dishes 

3 1  Boiled  salad 

32  Pig,  whole 
22  Rabbits 


Another  Menu 


1  Jelly  of  Tench,  Jelly  of 
Hartshorn 

2  White  Gingerbread 

3  Puits  [peewits] 

4  Curlew 

5  Ruffes  [sic] 

6  Fried  perches 

7  Fried  Eels 

8  Skirret  Pie 

9  Larks  (3  doz.) 

10  Plovers  (12) 

1 1  Teals  (12) 

12  Fried  Pickrell 

13  Fried  tench 

14  Salmon  soused 

15  Soused  eel 

16  Escanechia  [sic] 

There  is  also  a  list  of  " 


17  Seagulls  (6) 

1 8  Ham  of  bacon 

19  Sturgeon 

20  Lark  pie 

2 1  Lobster  pie 

22  Crayfishes  (3  doz.) 

23  Dried  tongues 

24  Anchovies 

2  5  Hartechocks  [artichokes] 

26  Peas 

27  Fool 

28  Second  porridge 

29  Reddeeve  pie  [sic] 

30  Cherry  tart 

3 1  Laid  tart 

32  Carps  (2) 

33  Polony  sasag  [sic] 

household  stuff  "  dated  the 


year  of  Lord  Dorset's  succession. 

94 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN   OF   CHARLES   I 


"a  Bott 

of  household    stuff  sent    by   symondes   to    knole 
the  28th  of  July  1624." 

IMPRIMIS.  A  fustian  down  bed,  bolster  and 
a  pair  of  pillows,  a  pair  of  Spanish  blankets, 
5  curtains  of  crimson  and  white  taffeta,  the 
valance  to  it  of  white  satin  embroidered  with 
crimson  and  white  silk  and  a  deep  fringe 
suitable  ;  a  test  and  tester  of  white  satin 
suitable  to  the  valance.  A  white  rug.  All 
these  first  packed  up  in  2  sheets  and  then 
packed  in  a  white  and  black  rug  and  an  old 
blanket. 


Packed  up  in  a 

fardel,  viz.  :  in 

ye     black      bed 

chamber 


Packed  in  an- 
other fardel, 
viz.  :  next  ye 
chapel  chamber 


In  ye  black  bed- 
chamber 


In  ye  black  bed- 
chamber 


Next  ye  Chap- 
lain's chamber 


IT  :  A  feather  bed  and  bolster,  a  pair  of 
down  pillows,  2  mattrasses,  5  curtains  and 
valances  of  yellow  cotton  trimmed  with  blue 
and  yellow  silk  fringes  and  lace  suitable,  a 
tester  to  it  suitable,  a  cushion  case  of  yellow 
satin,  a  pair  of  blankets  to  wrap  these  things 
in,  there  is  also  in  the  fardel  a  yellow  rug, 
and  a  white  and  black  rug. 

IT  :  Two  bedsteads  whereof  one  of  them  is 
gilt,  which  with  the  posts,  tests,  curtains, 
etc.,  are  in  all  1 1  parcels  whereof  4  are 
matted. 

IT  :  Packed  up  in  mats  2  high  stools,  2  low 
stools,  and  a  footstool  of  cloth  of  tissue  and 
chair  suitable. 

IT  :  There  goes  a  yellow  satin  chair  and 
3  stools,  suitable  with  their  buckram  covers 
to  them.  All  the  above  written  came  from 
Croxall, 

IT  :  Packed  in  mats  my  lady's  coach  of  cloth 
of  silver,  and  2  low  stools  that  came  from 
Croxall,  and  a  said  bag,  wherein  are  9  cups 
of  crimson  damask  laid  with  silver  parch- 

9^ 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Next  ye  Chap-    ment  lace,  and  6  gilt  cups  for  my  lord's 
Iain's  chamber    couch  bed  and  canopy,  and  8  gilt  cups  for 
the  bed  that  came  from  Croxall. 

IT  :  In  a  wicker  trunk,  2  brass  branches  for 
a  dozen  lights  apiece  ;  and  2  single  branches 
with  bosses  and  bucks  heads  to  them,  also 
a  wooden  box  with  screws  for  the  said  2  bed- 
steads, a  dozen  of  spiggots  to  draw  wine  and 
beer,  a  bundle  of  marsh  mallow  roots,  and 
2  papers  of  almonds. 

IT :  A  round  wicker  basket,  wherein  are 
9  dozen  of  pewter  vessels  of  9  sorts  or  sizes. 

IT  :  4  back  stools  of  crimson  and  yellow 
stuff  with  silk  fringe  suitable,  covered  with 
yellow  baize. 

IT  :  6  pairs  of  mats  to  mat  chambers  with 
gt  30  yards  apiece. 

IT :  2  walnut  tree  tables  to  draw  out  at  both 
ends  with  their  frames  of  the  same. 

IT  :  A  round  table  and  its  frame. 

IT  :  2  green  broad  cloth  chairs,  covered  all 
over,  laced,  and  set  with  green  silk  fringe 
and  a  back  stool  suitable,  covered  with  green 
buckram. 

IT :  A  box  containing  3  dozen  of  Venice 
glasses. 

IT :  A  basket  wherein  are  20  dozen  of 
maple  trenchers. 

And  finally,  for  I  fear  lest  the  detailing  of  these  old 
papers  should  grow  wearisome,  there  is  a  letter  which 
so  well  illustrates  the  humour,  the  coarseness,  and  the 
difficulties  of  life  at  that  time,  that  I  make  no  apology 
for  including  it: 

96 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES   I 

Letter 

from  ELIZA   COPE  to  her  sister  the  countess  of  bath 

19//^  Jan.  1639.     Brewerne 
Dear  Sister, 

I  AM  glad  to  hear  of  your  jolHty.  I  could  wish  myself  with 
you  a  little  while  sometimes.  I  have  played  at  cards  4  or  5 
times  this  Christmas  myself,  after  supper,  which  makes 
me  think  I  begin  to  turn  gallant  now.  Some  of  my  neigh- 
bours put  a  compliment  upon  me  this  Christmas,  and  told 
me  the  old  Lady  Cope  would  never  be  dead  so  long  as  I  was 
alive,  they  liked  their  entertainment  so  well,  when  my  gilt 
bowl  went  round  amongst  them,  which  saying  pleased  me 
very  well,  for  she  was  a  discreet  woman  and  worthy  the 
imitating.  I  am  as  well  pleased  to  see  my  little  man  make 
legs  and  dance  a  galliard,  as  if  I  had  seen  the  mask  at  Court. 
I  am  glad  you  got  well  home  for  we  have  had  extreme  ill 
weather  almost  ever  since  you  went,  but  now  I  will  take  the 
benefit  of  this  frost  to  go  visit  some  of  my  neighbours  on  foot 
to-morrow  about  seven  miles  off,  but  I  will  have  a  coach  and 
6  horses  within  a  call,  against  I  am  weary.  You  know  the 
old  saying,  it  is  good  going  on  foot  with  a  horse  in  the  hand. 
Commend  my  service  to  your  lord,  and  wishing  to  hear 
you  were  puking  a-mornings  I  bid  ye  good-night  in  haste. 

Your  faithful  sister, 

ELIZA    COPE. 

§  iii 

On  the  approach  of  civil  war  there  could  be,  of 
course,  no  doubt  on  which  side  the  Earl  of  Dorset 
would  range  himself.  He  had  been  for  many  years 
closely  connected  with  both  the  King  and  Henrietta 
Maria,  and  Lady  Dorset  stood  in  a  yet  more  intimate 
relationship  to  the  King  and  Queen  as  governess  to 
their  children.  Since  1630,  the  date  of  the  birth  of 
Charles  II,  she  had  held  this  position,  and  from  this 
little  anecdote  it  may  be  judged  that  she  was  not  so 

97  G 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

severe  a  preceptress  as  her  portrait  might  lead  one  to 
suppose: 

Charles  II,  when  a  child,  was  weak  in  the  legs,  and  ordered 
to  wear  steel  boots.  Their  weight  so  annoyed  him  that  he 
pined  till  recreation  became  labour — an  old  Rocker  took  off 
the  steel  boots  and  concealed  them  :  promising  the  Countess 
of  Dorset,  who  was  Charles'  governess,  that  he  would  take 
any  blame  for  the  act  on  himself.  Soon  afterwards,  the  King, 
Charles  I,  coming  into  the  nursery,  and  seeing  the  boy's 
legs  without  the  boots,  angrily  demanded  who  had  done  it. 
"  It  was  I,  Sir,"  said  the  Rocker,  "  who  had  the  honour  some 
thirty  years  since  to  attend  on  your  Highness  in  your  infancy, 
when  you  had  the  same  infirmity  wherewith  now  the  Prince, 
your  very  own  son,  is  troubled — and  then  the  Lady  Cary, 
afterwards  Countess  of  Monmouth,  commanded  your  steel 
boots  to  be  taken  off,  who,  blessed  be  God,  since  have 
gathered  strength  and  arrived  at  a  good  stature. 

It  is  no  small  tribute  to  Lady  Dorset's  integrity  that 
after  the  outbreak  of  war  she  should  have  been  con- 
tinued in  her  office  by  Parliament. 

I  have  in  my  own  possession  a  receipt  signed  by  her 
for  ^125  for  salary  and  expenses,  1641, 

War  became  imminent; 

"the  citizens  grow  very  tumultous  and  flock  by  troops  daily 
to  the  Parliament  .  .  .  they  never  cease  yawling  and 
crying  "  No  Bishops,  no  Bishops  1  "  My  lord  of  Dorset  is 
appointed  to  command  the  train-bands,  but  the  citizens 
slight  muskets  charged  with  powder,  I  myself  saw  the 
Guard  attempt  to  drive  the  citizens  forth,  but  the  citizens 
blustered  at  them  and  would  not  stir.  I  saw  and  heard  my 
Lord  of  Dorset  entreat  them  with  his  hat  in  his  hand  and 
yet  the  scoundrels  would  not  move." 

It  is  clear  from  contemporary  documents  that  Lord 
Dorset  was  preparing  to  take  an  active  part.  He  did, 
in  fact,  raise  a  troop  which  he  equipped  at  his  own 

98 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

expense,  and  with  which  he  joined  the  King  at  York. 
But  the  old  inventories  give  a  Ust  of  residue  arms  and 
armour  indicating  a  quantity  originally  more  numerous 
than  would  be  necessary  to  equip  a  small  troop ;  the  whole 
house  must  have  been  rifled  to  produce  these  weapons, 
all  carefully  listed,  whether  complete  or  incomplete, 
serviceable  or  not  serviceable,  old-fashioned  or  up  to 
date.  One  can  read  between  the  lines  of  the  list  the 
anxiety  that  nothing  should  be  omitted  which  could 
possibly  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  King. 
Among  the  armour  at  Knole  at  this  date  must  have 
been  the  fine  suit  of  tilting  armour,  formerly  the  pro- 
perty of  the  old  Lord  Treasurer,  and  now  in  the 
Wallace  Collection,  described  as  *'  a  complete  suit  of 
armour  .  .  .  richly  decorated  by  bands  and  bordering, 
deeply  etched  and  partly  gilt  with  a  scroll  design  .  .  . 
the  plain  surfaces  oxidised  to  a  rich  russet-brown 
known  in  inventories  of  the  period  as  purple  armour." 
This  suit,  which  is  one  of  the  gems  of  the  Wallace 
Collection,  had  been  made  in  1575  by  Jacob  Topp  or 
Jacobi  for  Sir  Thomas  Sackville. 

"  an  3!nt)0ntotp 

of  such  arms  as  are  now  remaining  in  the  armoury  at 
Knole  belonging  to  the  Rt.  Hon.  edward  earl 

of   DORSET, 

first  the  horsemen's  arms  &*  necessaries  belonging  to  them : " 

Cornets  for  Horses  2 

Curasiers  arms  gilt  2 

Curasiers  arms  plain  31 

White  tilting  armour  3 

A  baryears"  Armour  gorget  and  gauntlet 

wanting  i 
Sham    front    for    tilting    Run    plates    for 

barryers  i 
99 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Plated  saddles  suitable  to  the  gilt  arms  and 

furniture  rotten  2 

Old    russet    saddles    trimmed    with    red 

leather  and  furniture  defaulting  1 2 

Old  russet  and  black  saddles  12 

Black   leather   saddles   with   all   furniture 

bits  excepted  2 

Old    French    pistols,    whereof  four    have 

locks  the  other  9  have  none  and  double 

moulds  to  them  1 3 

Swords  1 4 

Horn  flasks  49 

Whereof  an  old  damask  one  cornered  with 

velvet  and  many  not  serviceable 
Slight  arms,  back  and  breast  2  gorgets  only 

to  them  1 3 

Arms  and  other  necessaries  for  foot  men 

One  engraven  target  i 
Partisan  rolled  with  red  velvet  and  nailed 

with  gilt  nails  and  damasked  with  gold  i 
Partisans  Damasked  with  Silver  and  the 

Cat  on  them  [the  Cat,  i.e,  the  leopard]  4 
Corslets  with  back  breast  cases  and  head- 
pieces 138 
Spanish    picks    and    English    picks    with 

Spanish  heads  whereof  4  are  broken  151 

Comb  head  pieces  70 

Old  Spanish  morions  50 

Halberts  7 

Bits  6 

Full  muskets  complete  76 

Bastard  muskets  56 

Muskets  imperfect  4 

Noulds  to  the  muskets  2 

New  Rests  64 

Old  Rests  7 

Bandeliers  1^6 

Barrels  of  match  wanting  1 6  bundles  2 

(Signed)  Dorset.  Jan,   1641 
100 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES  I 

It  was  not  very  long  before  the  Parliamentarians  got 
wind  of  this  hoard,  and  in  August  1 642  three  troops 
of  horse  under  the  command  of  one  Cornell  Sandys 
rode  into  Kent,  invaded  Knole,  took  prisoner  a  Sir 
John  Sackville  whom  they  found  in  charge  there,  did 
a  certain  amount  of  rough  damage,  and  carried  off  the 
contents  of  the  armoury  to  London.  The  proceedings 
were  thus  officially  reported: 

Some  SPECIAL  &  remarkable  passages 

from  both  houses  of  parliament  since  Monday  i  ^th  of  Aug.  till 
Friday  the  i()th  164.2. 

Upon  Saturday  night  last,  the  Lord  General  having 
information  of  a  great  quantity  of  Arms  of  the  Earl  of 
Dorset's  at  his  house  at  Sevenoaks,  in  Kent,  in  the  custody 
of  Sir  John  Sackville,  which  were  to  be  disposed  of  by  him 
to  arm  a  great  number  of  the  malignant  party  of  that  County, 
to  go  to  York  to  assist  his  Majesty  ;  called  a  Council  of  War, 
to  consider  of  the  same,  and  about  1 2  of  the  clock  at  night 
sent  out  3  troops  of  Horse  into  Kent  to  seize  upon  the  said 
Arms  ;  which  they  did  accordingly  on  the  Sunday  follow- 
ing ;  and  on  the  Monday  brought  the  same  to  London  and 
Sir  John  Sackville  prisoner,  there  being  complete  arms  for 
500  or  600  men. 

Despite  the  outcry  of  plaintive  indignation  which 
went  up  from  Knole,  the  House  of  Lords  report  proves 
that  their  conduct  towards  Lord  Dorset  over  the 
incident  was  fair,  lenient,  and  even  generous: 

That  the  Arms  of  the  Earl  of  Dorset  which  were  at  Knole 
House,  are  brought  to  Town,  to  be  kept  from  being  made 
use  of  against  the  Parliament, 

and  therefore  this  House  ordered. 

That  such  as  are  rich  Arms  shall  not  be  made  use  of,  but  kept 
safely  for  the  Earl  of  Dorset ;  but  such  as  are  fit  to  be  made 
use  of  for  the  service  of  the  Kingdom  are  to  be  employed  ; 

lOI 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

an  Inventory  to  be  taken,  and  money  to  be  given  to  the  Earl 
of  Dorset  in  satisfaction  thereof. 

Thus  ran  the  official  reports;  but  Knole,  astonished, 
aggrieved,  and  outraged,  drew  up  a  fuller  list  of 
injuries.  It  was  the  first  time  rude  voices  had  ever 
echoed  within  those  venerable  walls  or  rude  hands 
rummaged  among  the  sacred  possessions,  the  first  time 
that  orders  had  been  issued  there  by  another  than  the 
master.  The  Parliament  men  had  entered  with  arro- 
gance, spoken  with  authority,  gone  beyond  their 
warrant,  and  ransacked  wantonly — for  from  what 
motive  but  wantonness  could  they  have  taken  the 
plumes  from  the  bed-tester  or  the  cushions  from  his 
Lordship's  own  room  ?  or  spoilt  the  oil  in  the  Painter's 
Chamber  ?  or,  indeed,  broken  forty  locks,  unless  to 
overcome  such  slight  resistance  in  an  unnecessarily 
high-handed  manner  ?  No  doubt  the  novelty  of  the 
experience  turned  their  heads.  Rhetorically  they  were 
the  representatives  of  the  English  Parliament,  that 
sober  and  tenacious  senate,  as  stubborn  now  as  at 
Runnymede,  but  in  private  life  they  were  men,  how- 
ever insignificant  hitherto  to  Lord  Dorset,  men  who, 
when  he  passed  with  a  swagger,  murmured  dully 
beneath  their  reluctant  deference.  The  moment  when, 
cantering  up  over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  they  first  saw 
the  grey  forbidding  walls  and  drew  rein  before  the 
massive  door,  their  horses'  bits  jingling  and  the  restive 
hoofs  pawing  at  the  gravel,  must  indeed  have  been  an 
experience.  Likewise,  to  ring  their  spurs  on  the  paving- 
stones  of  the  courtyards,  to  pass  from  room  to  room 
followed  by  a  protesting  and  impotent  steward,  to 
stare  at  the  pictures,  to  lounge  on  the  velvet  chairs,  to 
set  out  their  ink  and  paper  on  the  solid  table  of  the 
parlour   and   to   draw   up   their  indictment.     It  was 

102 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

August;  the  rose  planted  beneath  the  window  of  a 
Stuart  King  to  commemorate  his  visit  was  covered  with 
its  little  white  blossoms;  the  turf  was  smooth  and 
green ;  the  flowers  were  bright  under  the  young  apple- 
trees  in  the  orchard;  the  beeches  and  chestnuts  were 
deep  and  heavy  with  the  fullness  of  summer.  The 
austerity  of  the  Roundheads  surely  stiffened  in  the  soft 
summer  spaciousness  of  Knole.  The  owner  was  absent: 
they  had  only  his  new  portrait  to  gaze  at,  with  scorn 
of  his  brilliant  doublet  and  his  curling  hair. 

All  things  considered,  I  think  that  they  showed  com- 
mendable restraint  in  their  behaviour: 

The  hurt  done  at  knole  house  the  14  T>ay  oj  August  1642 
by  the  company  of  horsemen  brought  by  Cornell  sandys  : 

There  are  above  forty  stock  locks  and  plated  locks  broken, 
which  to  make  good  will  cost  {j.o. 

There  is  of  gold  branches  belonging  to  the  couch  in  the 
rich  gallery  as  much  cut  away  as  will  not  be  made  good  for 

And  in  my  Lord's  chamber  12  long  cushion-cases 
embroidered  with  satin  and  gold,  and  the  plumes  upon  the 
bed-tester,  to  ye  value  of  ^^30. 

They  have  broken  open  six  trunks  ;  in  one  of  them  was 
money  ;  what  is  lost  of  it  we  know  not,  in  regard  the  keeper 
of  it  is  from  home.  They  have  spoiled  in  the  Painter's 
Chamber  his  oil,  and  other  wrongs  there  to  the  value  of  ;^40. 

They  have  broke  into  Sir  John  his  Granary  and  have 
taken  of  his  oats  and  peas,  to  the  quantity  of  three  or  four 
quarters  ^^. 

The  arms  they  have  wholly  taken  away,  there  being  five 
waggon-loads  of  them. 

Nor  was  this  the  last  time  that  the  ParUamentarians 
came  to  Knole.  Three  years  after  these  events  Crom- 
well's commissioners  were  installed  there  as  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Court  of  Sequestration  for  Kent,  and 

103 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

held  their  sessions  in  the  Poets'  Parlour,  when  the 
Sackvilles  were,  for  a  short  time,  deprived  of  the  pro- 
perty. On  this  occasion  there  is  no  record  of  any 
definite  damage  to  the  contents  of  the  house,  although 
a  House  of  Commons  notice  for  January  1 645  ordered 
that  "  two-thirds  of  the  goods  and  estates  of  the  Earl  of 
Dorset  not  exceeding  the  sum  of  ^500  now  at  Knole 
in  the  county  of  Kent,  and  lately  discovered  there, 
shall  be  employed  for  the  use  of  the  garrison  at  Dover 
Castle,  towards  the  pay  of  their  arrears." 

Among  the  papers  in  the  Muniment  Room  I  find  a 
letter  of  a  later  date  from  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  to  Lord 
Dorset,  referring  to  some  stolen  pictures  which  he  has 
been  endeavouring  to  trace  in  Paris,and  recommending 
to  Lord  Dorset  a  certain  M.  La  Fontaine  for  "  the 
much  pains  and  running  about  he  hath  used,"  suggest- 
ing that  he  should  be  rewarded  with  20s.  and  recom- 
mended to  good  customers  to  sell  his  *'  powders  and 
cigeours."  I  wonder  inevitably  whether  the  loss  of 
these  pictures  had  been  due  to  any  action  of  Cromwell 
or  his  commissioners  ?  Sir  Kenelm's  letter,  which  is 
long,  rambling,  and  rather  illegible,  does  not  make 
any  mention  of  the  cause  or  date  of  the  disappear- 
ance. Sir  Kenelm  is  himself  of  greater  interest,  per- 
haps, than  his  letter  or  the  pictures.  An  intimate 
friend  of  Lord  Dorset's,  the  author  of  several  house- 
wifely little  treatises,  such  as  Tke  Closet  of  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby  and  Choice  and  Experimental  Receipts,  he  was 
incidentally  the  husband  of  that  Venetia  Stanley  whose 
lover  Richard  Sackville  had  been.  (It  has,  I  may 
mention,  been  suggested  that  Edward  Sackville,  not 
Richard,  was  the  lover  of  Lady  Digby;  and  having 
regard  to  what  I  know  of  Sir  Kenelm's  character  I 
should  think  it  not  inconsistent,  even  if  this  were  so, 

104 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

that  he  should  remain  on  most  friendly  terms  with  the 
former  lover  of  his  wife.  He  had,  after  all,  not  scrupled 
to  sue  Lord  Dorset,  whether  Richard  or  Edward,  for 
the  continuance  after  marriage  of  Lady  Digby's 
pension  of  £s^^  ^  year.)  Sir  Kenelm's  portrait  by 
Vandyck  is  at  Knole  in  the  Poets'  Parlour;  he  is  a 
chubby  little  man,  with  a  fat  outspread  hand,  and 
dimples  in  the  place  of  knuckles.  At  one  period  of  the 
Civil  War  he  suffered  imprisonment,  when  Lord 
Dorset,  wishing  to  beguile  his  friend's  tedium,  advised 
him  to  read  the  recently  published  Religio  Medici  of 
Sir  Thomas  Browne :  Sir  Kenelm  took  his  advice,  and 
was  so  much  impressed  as  to  embody  his  observations 
in  a  long  letter  to  Lord  Dorset,  which  was  subsequently 
printed  (1643)  ^7  '*  •^-  ^-  ^^^  Daniel  Frere,  to  be  sold 
at  his  shop  at  the  Red  Bull  in  Little  Britain."  I  happen 
to  have  the  first  editions  of  the  Reiigio  Medici  and  the 
little  companion  volume  of  Sir  Kenelm's  Observations  : 
the  former  is  heavily  scored  or  commented  by  some 
appreciative  reader,  and  attention  is  called  in  the 
margin  to  favourite  passages  by  the  drawing  of  a  tiny 
hand  with  pointing  finger,  the  wrist  encircled  by  a 
cuff  of  point  de  Venise.  Sir  Kenelm  esteemed  his 
friend's  taste,  and  the  "  spirit  and  smartness  "  of  the 
author,  who  set  out  upon  his  task  so  excellently  poised 
with  a  happy  temper.  Towards  the  end  of  his  dis- 
course Sir  Kenelm  quite  loses  his  sense  of  proportion  in 
his  enthusiasm  over  Lord  Dorset's  discernment,  and 
exclaims : 

Tu  regere  imperio  populos  [Sackville]  memento^ 

and  concludes  by  dating  his  letter  '*  the  22nd  [I  think 
I  may  say  the  23rd,  for  I  am  sure  it  is  morning,  and 
I  think  it  is  day]  of  December  1642,"  thus  proving 

105 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

that  he  has  sat  up  all  night  in  prison  with  Sir  Thomas 
Browne — and  who  in  this  generation  could  with  truth 
make  such  a  boast  ? 

§  iv 

More  tragical  events  than  the  desecration  of  his 
house  or  the  imprisonment  of  his  chubby  friend 
marked  for  Lord  Dorset  the  progress  of  the  Civil  War. 
His  eldest  son,  Lord  Buckhurst,  was  early  taken 
prisoner  at  Miles  End  Green  with  Lord  Middlesex  and 
that  same  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  and  his  younger  son, 
Edward,  was  also  taken  prisoner  at  Kidlington,  near 
Oxford,  and  murdered  in  cold  blood  by  a  Roundhead 
soldier  shortly  after,  at  Abingdon.  I  know  nothing  of 
this  Edward  Sackville  except  that  he  was  knighted  at 
an  early  age,  was  reported  to  be  "  a  good  chymist,"  and 
was  deplored  in  an  obituary  poem  as  being 

a  lamp  that  had  consumed 

Scarce  half  its  oil^  yet  the  whole  place  perfumed 
Wherein  he  lived,  or  did  in  kindness  come. 
As  if  composed  of  precious  Balsamum, 

and  as  being  to  his  friends 

that  lost  in  losing  him, 
An  eye,  a  tongue,  a  hand,  or  some  choice  limb. 

The  author  of  this  poem,  A.  Townsend,  contributed 
also  to  the  Knole  papers  a  set  of  verses  on  the  death  of 
Charles  L    *'  It  is  a  shame,"  he  exclaims, 

those  that  can  write  in  verse. 
Quite  cover  not  with  elegies  his  hearse, 

and  asks: 

Where  are  the  learned  sisters,  whose  full  breast 
Was  wont  to  yield  such  store  of  milk,  unpressed  ? 

1 06 


The  two  sons  of  Edward,  4TH  Earl  of  Dorset  : 

RICHARD,   LORD  BUCKHURST  ;     THE  HON.  EDWARD  SACKVILLE 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Cornelius  Nuie 


■   KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES  I 
The  King,  he  says,  was 

pious,  temperate,  and  grave, 

Just,  gentle,  constant,  merciful,  and  brave. 
All  this,  and  more,  he  was  not  pleased  to  he. 
Without  the  woman  s  virtue.  Chastity, 

most  unlike  Solomon,  who  was  wise,  yet 

did  incline 

To  worship  idols,  for  a  concubine. 

Lord  Dorset  himself  took  an  active  part  in  the  fight- 
ing. At  Edgehill  he  recaptured  the  Royal  Standard 
which  had  been  lost  to  the  enemy,  and  to  his  answer 
during  the  same  battle  James  II  later  testified : 

The  old  Earl  of  Dorset,  at  Edgehill  \he  wrote],  being 
commanded  by  the  King  my  father  to  carry  the  Prince 
[Charles  II]  and  myself  up  a  hill  out  of  the  battle,  refused 
to  do  it,  and  said  he  would  not  be  thought  a  coward  for  ever 
a  King's  son  in  Christendom. 

I  think  also  that  one  of  his  speeches  is  worth  print- 
ing, made  at  the  Council  table  in  reply  to  one  of  Lord 
Bristol's  which  urged  the  continuance  of  the  war.  It 
is  honest,  enlightened,  bold,  and,  considering  his  per- 
sonal grievances,  very  dignified: 

THE  Earl  of  Bristol  has  delivered  his  opinion  ;  and,  my 
turn  being  next  to  speak,  I  shall,  with  the  like  integrity, 
give  your  Lordships  an  account  of  my  sentiments  in  this 
great  and  important  business.  I  shall  not,  as  young  students 
do  in  the  schools,  argumentandi  gratia,  repugn  my  Lord  of 
Bristol's  tenets  ;  but  because  my  conscience  tells  me  they  are 
not  orthodox,  nor  consonant  to  the  disposition  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, which,  languishing  with  a  tedious  sickness,  must 
be  recovered  by  gentle  and  easy  medicines  in  consideration 
of  its  weakness  rather  than  by  violent  vomits,  or  any  other 
kind  of  compelling  physic.  Not  that  I  shall  absolutely  labour 

107 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

to  refute  my  Lord's  opinion,  but  justly  deliver  my  own, 
which,  being  contrary  to  his,  may  appear  an  express  con- 
tradiction of  it,  whicii  indeed  it  is  not ;  peace,  and  that  a 
sudden  one,  being  as  necessary  betwixt  his  Majesty  and  his 
Parliament  as  light  is  requisite  for  the  production  of  the  day, 
or  heat  to  cherish  from  above  all  inferior  bodies  ;  this 
division  betwixt  his  Majesty  and  his  Parliament  being  as  if 
[by  miracle]  the  sun  should  be  separated  from  his  beams,  and 
divided  from  his  proper  essence.  I  would  not,  my  Lords, 
be  ready  to  embrace  a  peace  that  would  be  more  dis- 
advantageous to  us  than  the  present  war,  which,  as  the  Earl 
of  Bristol  says,  "  would  destroy  our  estates  and  families." 
The  Parliament  declares  only  against  delinquents  ;  such  as 
they  conjecture  have  miscounselled  his  Majesty,  and  be  the 
authors  of  these  tumults  in  the  Commonwealth.  But  these 
declarations  of  theirs,  except  such  crimes  can  be  proved 
against  them,  are  of  no  validity.  The  Parliament  will  do 
nothing  unjustly,  nor  condemn  the  innocent ;  and  certainly 
innocent  men  had  not  need  to  fear  to  appear  before  any 
judges  whatsoever.  And  he,  who  shall  for  any  cause  prefer 
his  own  private  good  before  the  public  utility,  is  but  an  ill 
son  of  the  Commonwealth.  For  my  particular,  in  these 
wars  I  have  suffered  as  much  as  any ;  my  house  hath  been 
searched,  my  arms  taken  thence,  and  my  son-and-heir  com- 
mitted to  prison.  Tet  I  shall  tvave  these  discourtesies,  be- 
cause I  know  there  was  a  necessity  it  should  be  so ;  and  as 
the  darling  business  of  the  kingdom,  the  honour  and  pros- 
perity of  the  King,  study  to  reconcile  all  these  differences 
betwixt  his  Majesty  and  his  Parliament ;  and  so  to  reconcile 
them,  that  they  shall  no  way  prejudice  his  royal  prerogative ; 
of  which  I  believe  the  Parliament  being  a  loyal  defender 
[knowing  the  subject's  property  depends  on  it ;  for,  if 
sovereigns  cannot  enjoy  their  rights,  their  subjects  cannot] 
will  never  endeavour  to  be  infringed  ;  so  that,  if  doubts  and 
jealousies  were  taken  away  by  a  fair  treaty  between  his 
Majesty  and  the  Parliament,  no  doubt  a  means  might  be 
devised  to  rectify  these  differences — the  honour  of  the  King, 
the  estate  of  us  his  followers  and  counsellors,  the  privileges 
of  Parliament,  and  property  of  the  subject,  be  infallibly  pre- 
served in  safety  :   and  neither  the  King  stoop  in  this  to  his 

io8 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  I 

subjects,  nor  the  subjects  be  deprived  of  their  just  liberties 
by  the  King.  And  whereas  my  Lord  of  Bristol  observes, 
"  that  in  Spain  very  few  civil  dissensions  arise,  because  the 
subjects  are  truly  subjects,  and  the  Sovereign  truly  a 
Sovereign  "  ;  that  is,  as  I  understand,  the  subjects  are 
scarcely  removed  a  degree  from  slaves,  nor  the  Sovereign 
from  a  tyrant ;  here  in  England  the  subjects  have,  by  long- 
received  liberties  granted  to  our  ancestors  by  their  Kings, 
made  their  freedom  resolve  into  a  second  nature  ;  and 
neither  is  it  safe  for  our  Kings  to  strive  to  introduce  the 
Spanish  Government  upon  these  free-born  nations,  nor  just 
for  the  people  to  suffer  that  Government  to  be  imposed  upon 
them,  which  I  am  certain  his  Majesty's  goodness  never 
intended.  And  whereas  my  Lord  of  Bristol  intimates  the 
strength  and  bravery  of  our  army  as  an  inducement  to  the 
continuation  of  these  wars,  which  he  promises  himself  will 
produce  a  fair  and  happy  peace  ;  in  this  I  am  utterly 
repugnant  to  his  opinion  ;  for,  grant  that  we  have  an  army 
of  gallant  and  able  men,  which,  indeed,  cannot  be  denied, 
yet  we  have  infinite  disadvantages  on  our  side,  the  Parlia- 
ment having  double  our  number,  and  surely  [though  our 
enemies]  persons  of  as  much  bravery,  nay,  and  sure  to  be 
daily  supported,  when  any  of  their  number  fails  ;  a  benefit 
which  we  cannot  bestow,  they  having  the  most  populous 
part  of  the  kingdom  at  their  devotion  ;  all,  or  most,  of  the 
cities,  considerable  towns  and  ports,  together  with  the 
mainest  pillar  of  the  kingdom's  safety,  the  sea,  at  their  com- 
mand, and  the  navy  ;  and,  which  is  most  material  of  all,  an 
inexhaustible  Indies  of  money  to  pay  their  soldiers,  out  of  the 
liberal  contributions  of  coin  and  plate  sent  in  by  people  of 
all  conditions,  who  account  the  Parliament's  cause  their 
cause,  and  so  think  themselves  engaged  to  part  with  the 
uttermost  penny  of  their  estates  in  their  defence,  whom  they 
esteem  the  patriots  of  their  liberties.  These  strengths  of 
theirs  and  the  defects  of  ours  considered,  I  conclude  it 
necessary  for  all  our  safeties,  and  the  good  of  the  whole 
Commonwealth,  to  beseech  his  Majesty  to  take  some  present 
order  for  a  treaty  of  peace  betwixt  himself  and  his  high  court 
of  Parliament,  who,  I  believe,  are  so  loyal  and  obedient  to 
his  sacred  Majesty,  that  they  will  propound  nothing  that 

109 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

shall  be  prejudicial  to  his  royal  prerogative,  or  repugnant 
to  their  fidelity  and  duty. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  at  all  to  my  purpose  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  Civil  War,  but  only  to  say  that  after 
the  execution  of  the  King  Lord  Dorset  made  a  vov^, 
which  he  is  believed  to  have  kept,  that  he  would  never 
again  stir  out  of  his  house  until  he  should  be  carried  out 
of  it  in  his  coffin.  He  did  not,  in  point  of  fact,  survive 
the  King  by  very  many  years,  but  died  in  1652  and 
was  buried  at  Withyham. 


no 


CHAPTER   VI 

Knole  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  II 

CHARLES 

6th 
Earl  of  Dorset 

§i 

EDWARD  SACKVILLE  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  Richard,  married  to  Lady  Frances  Cran- 
field,  a  considerable  heiress,  who,  on  the  death 
of  her  brother,  inherited  the  fortune  and  property  of 
their  father,  Lionel  Cranfield,  Earl  of  Middlesex,  some- 
time Treasurer  to  James  I.  I  mention  this  marriage 
especially,  because  it  brought  to  the  Sackvilles  the 
house  called  Copt  Hall  in  Essex  and  its  contents,  which 
included  much  of  the  finest  furniture  now  at  Knole, 
some  of  the  tapestry,  the  many  portraits  of  the  Cran- 
fields  by  Mytens  and  Dobson,  the  series  of  historical 
portraits  in  the  Brown  Gallery,  and  the  Mytens  copies 
of  Raphael's  cartoons.  There  are  a  number  of  receipts 
at  Knole  to  no  less  than  six  different  carriers,  for 
wagon-loads  of  effects  removed  from  Copt  Hall  to 
Knole  at  the  cost  of  ^2.  5^.  per  load.  From  Copt  Hall 
also  came  the  carved  stone  shield  now  in  the  Stone 
Court  on  the  roof  of  the  Great  Hall.  The  Copt  Hall 
estate  was  sold  in  1701  for  the  approximate  sum  of 
twenty  thousand  pounds.  The  draft  of  the  marriage 
settlement  is  at  Knole: 

January  i^th^  1640 

The  Earl  of  Middlesex  is  to  assure  ten  thousand  pounds 
to  the  Earl  of  Dorset  in  marriage  with  the  Lady  Frances 


III 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Cranfield  to  the  Lord  Buckhurst  to  be  paid  in  times  and 
manner  following  : 

He  is  to  retain  the  money  in  his  hands,  paying  yearly  to 
the  young  couple  towards  their  maintenance  by  equal 
portions  at  Michaelmas  and  our  Lady  Day  ;^8oo  per  annum 
until  a  jointure  be  made  of  ;/^i500  per  annum,  by  the  Lord 
Buckhurst  joining  with  the  Earl  of  Dorset  when  he  shall 
come  to  full  age. 

And  if  the  Lord  Buckhurst  [which  God  forbid]  shall 
decease  before  the  said  lady,  or  a  jointure  so  made,  then  the 
ten  thousand  pound  shall  be  the  sole  use  of  the  said  lady. 
But  if  the  said  lady  [which  God  forbid]  should  die  before  the 
the  Lord  Buckhurst  without  children,  the  said  portion  or  so 
much  shall  remain  not  laid  out  by  consent  of  the  Earl  of 
Dorset  in  purchasing  in  lands  or  leases,  shall  be  paid  to  the 
said  Earl  of  Dorset. 


And  in  the  same  connection  there  are  some  notes 
from  Edward,  Lord  Dorset  to  Lord  Middlesex,  one 
written  "  this  Thursday  morning  at  5  of  the  clock," 
apologising  for  the  **  bad  character "  which  Lord 
Middlesex  must  decipher — and  indeed  the  writing  is 
all  but  illegible — but  he  is  obliged  to  write  as  he  must 
go  presently  into  Kent  to  dispose  some  bargains  and 
sales. 

No  particular  interest  attaches  to  Richard  Sackville, 
save  that  he  translated  Le  Cid  into  English  verse  and 
wrote  a  poem  on  Ben  Jonson,  but  there  are  at  Knole 
some  memorandum  books  in  his  handwriting  (between 
1660  and  1670)  which  are  worth  quoting,  I  think,  for 
the  following  illuminating  extracts: 

From   the   diary   of  servants'  faults 

I     s.  d, 
Henry  Mattock,  for  scolding  to  extremity  on 

Sunday  without  cause  003 

112 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES   II 

William  Loe,  for  running  out  of  doors  from     ^    s.     d. 

Morning  till  Midnight  without  leave  020 

Richard  Meadowes,  for  being  absent  when 

my  Lord  came  home  late,  and  making  a 

headless  excuse  006 

Henry  Mattock,  for  not  doing  what  he  is 

bidden  010 

And  3^/.  a  day  till  he  does  from  this  day. 
Henry   Mattock,   for  disposing  of  my  cast 

linen  without  my  order  003 

Robert  Verrell,  for  giving  away  my  money         006 
Henry  Mattock,  for  speaking  against  going 

to  Knole  006 

Verrell  to  pay  for  not  burning  the  brakes  out 

of  the  Wilderness,  '^d.  per  week  out  of  his 

week's  wages  of  55.  for  forty-two  weeks. 

There  are  various  other  notes  in  the  same  books: 
Thomas  Porter,  going  to  Knole,  was  to  have  five 
shillings  a  week  board-wages;  and,  judging  from  the 
following.  Lord  Dorset  evidently  could  not  wholly 
trust  his  memory  unaided:  "  My  French  shot-bag; 
an  hammer,  and  some  playthings  for  Tom,  a  bone 
knife,  etc.  A  great  Iron  chafing-dish,  or  a  fire-pan  to 
set  it  upon."  And  again,  "  A  silver  porringer  for  little 
Tom." 

Another  day  he  notes : 

Old  lead  cast  at  Knole  for  the  two  turrets  weighing 
1500  lbs.  Old  lead  cast  for  the  cistern  weighing  1200  lbs. 
Sold  13th  Aug.  1662  to  Edmund  Giles  and  Edward 
Bourne  the  Advowson  of  the  Rectory  and  Parsonage  of 
Tooting  in  Surrey  for  an  ;/^ioo  and  paid  my  wife. 

There  is  also  a  receipt: 

Nov.  14,   1 67 1.   iR0C°  of  the  Right  Hon.   richard  Earl 
of  DORSET,  in  full  of  all   wages  bills  and  accounts  what- 

113  H 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

soever  from  ye  beginning  of  ye  World  to  this  day  ye  full 
sum  of  five  pounds  seven  shillings  and  sixpence  I  say 
rec'd  by  john    wall   grove. 

This  Richard  Sackville  and  Frances  Cranfield  had 
seven  sons  and  six  daughters.  There  are  some  delight- 
ful portraits  of  the  little  girls  at  Knole,  one  in  par- 
ticular of  Lady  Anne  and  Lady  Frances,  painted  in  a 
garden,  leading  a  squirrel  on  a  blue  ribbon,  and  in  the 
chapel  at  Withyham  there  is  an  elaborate  monument  to 
commemorate  the  youngest  son,  Thomas,  no  doubt  the 
"  little  Tom  "  for  whom  the  playthings  and  the  silver 
porringer  were  to  be  remembered.  The  monument 
bears  the  following  inscription: 

Stand  not  amaz'd  [Reader']  to  see  us  shed 

From  drowned  eyes  vain  offerings  to  ye  dead 

For  he  whose  sacred  ashes  here  doth  lie 

Was  the  great  hopes  of  all  our  family. 

To  blaze  whose  virtues  is  but  to  detract 

From  them^  for  in  them  none  can  be  exact. 

So  grave  and  hopeful  was  his  youth. 

So  dear  a  friend  to  piety  and  truth. 

He  scarce  knew  sin,  but  what  curst  nature  gave. 

And  yet  grim  death  hath  snatch' d  him  to  his  grave. 

He  never  to  his  Parents  was  unkind 

But  in  his  early  leaving  them  behind. 

And  since  hath  left  us  and  for  e'er  is  gone 

What  Mother  would  not  weep  for  such  a  Son — 

May  this  fair  Monument  then  never  fade. 

Or  be  by  blasting  time  or  age  decay  d. 

That  the  succeeding  times  to  all  may  tell 

Here  lieth  one  that  liv'd  and  died  well — 

Here  lies  the  thirteenth  child  and  seventh  son 

Who  in  his  thirteenth  year  his  race  had  run. 

THOMAS    sackville. 

114 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

Of  the  other  children,  save  of  the  eldest,  there  is  no 
record,  or  none  worth  quoting:  many  of  them  died, 
as  happened  with  such  pitiable  frequency,  at  a  very 
early  age:  Lionel,  aged  three;  Catherine,  aged  one; 
Cranfield,  aged  fourteen  days;  Elizabeth,  aged  two 
years;  Anne,  aged  three.  The  eldest  son,  however,  is 
one  of  the  most  jovial  and  debonair  figures  in  the  Knole 
portrait-gallery,  Charles,  the  sixth  Earl — ^let  us  call 
him  the  Restoration  Earl — the  jolly,  loose-living, 
magnificent  Maecenas,  "  during  the  whole  of  his  life 
the  patron  of  men  of  genius  and  the  dupe  of  women, 
and  bountiful  beyond  measure  to  both."  He  furnished 
Knole  with  silver,  and  peopled  it  with  poets  and 
courtesans;  he  left  us  the  Poets'  Parlour,  rich  with 
memories  of  Pope  and  Dryden,  Prior  and  Shadwell, 
D'Urfey  and  Killigrew;  he  left  us  the  silver  and  ebony 
stands  on  which  he  was  in  the  habit  in  hours  of  relaxa- 
tion of  placing  his  cumbersome  periwig;  he  left  us  his 
portraits,  both  as  the  bewigged  and  be-ribboned 
courtier,  and  as  the  host,  wrapped  in  a  loose  robe,  a 
turban  twisted  round  his  head;  he  left  us  his  gay  and 
artificial  stanzas  to  Chloris  and  Dorinda,  and  his 
rousing  little  song  written  on  the  eve  of  a  naval 
engagement.  He  is  not,  perhaps,  a  very  admirable 
figure.  He  was  not  above  trafficking  in  court  appoint- 
ments; he  disturbed  London  by  a  rowdy  youth;  he 
was  reported  to  have  passed  on  his  mistresses  to  the 
King;  he  ended  his  life  in  mental  and  moral  decay 
with  a  squalid  woman  at  Bath.  He  followed  the 
fashions  of  his  age,  and  the  most  that  can  be  claimed 
for  him  is  that  he  should  stand,  along  with  his  in- 
separables Rochester  and  Sedley,  as  the  prototype  of 
that  age.  But  for  all  that,  there  is  about  such  geniality, 
such  generosity,  and  such  munificence,  a  certain  coarse 

"5 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

lovableness  which  holds  an  indestructible  charm  for 
the  English  race.  It  is  that  which  makes  Charles  the 
Second  a  more  popular  monarch  than  William  the 
Third:  Herrick  a  more  popular  poet  than  Milton. 
Last  but  not  least,  Charles  Sackville  is  connected  with 
that  most  attractive  figure  of  the  English  stage — Nell 
Gwyn. 

It  is  not  known  precisely  in  what  year  he  was  born, 
but  it  was  either  1639,  1640,  or  1642,  so  that  he  must 
have  been  a  young  man  somewhere  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  twenty  when  Charles  II  came  to  the  throne. 
He  had  been  educated  by  a  tutor,  one  Jennings,  and 
sent  abroad  with  him:  as  Jennings  wrote  home  of  him 
in  measured  terms  surprising  in  that  age  of  sycophancy, 
saying  "  I  doubt  not  he  will  attain  to  some  perfection," 
he  probably  held  but  a  low  opinion  of  the  abilities  of 
his  pupil.  I  do  not  know  at  what  age  Lord  Buckhurst, 
as  he  then  was,  returned  to  England,  but  he  must  have 
been  quite  young,  for  in  1660  he  becomes  Colonel  of 
a  regiment  of  foot,  commands  1 04  men,  and  receives 
a  yearly  allowance  of  ^jo  from  his  father,  and  the 
references  to  him  in  Pepys  begin  in  1661  when  he  was 
not  more  than  twenty-one  or  twenty-two.  He  was, 
says  Dr.  Johnson  with  characteristic  disapproval  and 
severity,  "  eager  of  the  riotous  and  licentious  pleasures 
which  young  men  of  high  rank,  who  aspired  to  be 
thought  wits,  at  that  time  imagined  themselves  entitled 
to  indulge."  Many  of  his  pranks  have  been  placed  on 
record.  They  are  neither  very  funny  nor  very  edifying. 
On  one  occasion  he  and  his  brother  Edward,  with 
three  friends,  were  committed  to  Newgate  for  killing 
an  innocent  man  in  a  brawl,  and  should  no  doubt  have 
been  tried  for  murder,  but  as  those  contretemps  could 
be  arranged  with  very  little  difficulty  the  charge  was 

116 


CHARLES  SACKVILLE,  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  KG. 
From  the  portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  in  the  Poets'  Parlour  at  Knote 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

modified  to  manslaughter.^  On  another  occasion,  the 
full  details  of  which  are  not  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
expurgated  edition  of  Pepys,  Lord  Buckhurst,  Sir 
Charles  Sedley,  and  Sir  Thomas  Ogle  got  drunk  at  the 
Cock  Tavern  in  Bow  Street,  where  they  went  out  on 
to  a  balcony,  and  Sedley  took  off  all  his  clothes  and 
harangued  the  crowd  which  collected  below:  the 
crowd,  in  indignation,  drove  them  in  with  stones,  and 
broke  the  windows  of  the  house;  for  this  offence  all 
three  gentlemen  were  indicted  and  Sedley  was  fined 
^500.  On  yet  another  occasion  Buckhurst  and  Sedley 
spent  the  night  in  prison  for  brawling  with  the  watch, 
and  were  delivered  only  on  the  King's  intervention. 
On  yet  another,  Pepys  records  that  "  the  King  was 
drunk  at  Saxam  with  Sedley  and  Buckhurst,  the  night 
that  my  Lord  Arlington  came  thither,  and  would  not 
give  him  audience,  or  could  not."  These  and  similar 
exploits  recall  the  more  celebrated  escapade  of 
Rochester  as  an  astrologer,  which  at  least  had  in  it  a 
humorous  element  entirely  lacking  in  the  mere  rioting 
of  drunken  young  men  like  Buckhurst  and  Sedley. 
It  is  not  very  surprising  to  learn  that  although  he 
'*  inherited  not  only  the  paternal  estate  of  the  Sack- 
villes  but  likewise  that  of  the  Cranfields,  Earls  of 
Middlesex  in  right  of  his  mother,  yet  at  his  decease 
his  son,  then  only  eighteen  years  of  age,  possessed  so 
slender  a  fortune  that  his  guardians  when  they  sent 
him  to  travel  on  the  Continent  allowed  him  only  eight 

1  The  following  account  is  abridged  from  the  Mercurius  Publicus  of  the 
day:  "Charles  Lord  Buckhurst;  Edward  Sackville,  his  brother;  Sir  Henry 
Belasyse,  eldest  son  of  Lord  Belasyse;  John  Belasyse,  brother  of  Lord  Faul- 
conberg;  and  Thomas  Wentworth,  only  son  of  Sir  G.  Wentworth,  whilst 
in  pursuit  of  thieves  near  Waltham  Cross,  mortally  wounded  an  innocent 
tanner  named  Hoppy,  and  .  .  .  were  soon  after  apprehended  on  charges  of 
robbery  and  murder,  but  the  Grand  Jury  found  a  bill  for  manslaughter 
only." 

117 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

hundred  pounds  a  year  for  his  provision,"  nor  that 
"  extenuated  by  pleasures  and  indulgences,  he  sank 
into  a  premature  old  age."  Before  sinking  into  this  old 
age,  however,  he  lived  through  the  full  enjoyment  of  a 
splendid  youth.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  an  era  in 
English  history  more  favourable  to  a  young  man  of 
his  type  and  fortune  than  the  early  years  of  Charles  II, 
when  the  King  himself  was  the  ringleader  in  the  out- 
burst of  revolt  against  that  iron-grey  period  of 
Puritanism  through  which  the  country  had  just  passed. 
Dresses  became  extravagant,  silver  ornate,  speech 
licentious;  the  theatres,  which  had  been  closed  for 
over  twenty  years,  reopened,  the  costumes  and  scenery 
being  now  on  an  elaborate  scale  never  contemplated 
before;  women — a  daring  innovation — appeared  in 
the  women's  roles;  the  King  and  his  brother  patronised 
the  play-houses  with  all  the  young  bloods  of  the  court; 
coaches  clattered  through  the  streets  of  London,  yes, 
even  on  a  Sunday.  There  is,  of  course,  another  side 
to  the  picture — the  sullen  disapproval  of  the  serious- 
minded,  the  squalor  of  a  London  shortly  to  be  rotted 
by  plague  and  terribly  purified  by  fire — but  with  this 
side  we  have  in  the  present  connection  no  concern.  We 
are  in  the  gay  upper  stratum  of  prosperity  and  fashion, 
fortunate  in  the  extraordinary  vividness  of  our 
visualisation ;  we  know  not  only  the  principal  charac- 
ters, but  also  the  crowd  of  "  supers  "  pressing  behind 
them;  we  know  their  comings  and  goings,  their 
intrigues,  their  rivalries,  their  amusements,  the  names 
of  their  mistresses.  We  are  now  at  Whitehall,  now  at 
Epsom,  now  at  Tunbridge  Wells,  now  at  Richmond. 
We  are,  indeed,  very  deeply  in  Pepys'  debt. 

In  this  world,  therefore,  so  intimately  familiar  to 
any  reader  of  the  great  diarist.  Lord  Buckhurst  moves 

ii8 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

noisily  with  Rochester  and  Buckingham,  Etherege  and 
Sedley,  ''  the  first  gentleman,"  says  Horace  Walpole, 
"  of  the  voluptuous  court  of  Charles  II."  We  are  told 
that  he  refused  the  King's  offers  of  employment  in 
order  to  enjoy  his  pleasures  with  the  greater  freedom, 
or,  as  he  himself  wrote  with  much  frankness : 

May  knaves  and  fools  grow  rich  and  great^ 

And  the  world  think  them  wise^ 
While  I  lie  dying  at  her  feet 

And  all  the  world  despise. 

Let  conquering  Kings  new  triumphs  raise. 

And  melt  in  court  delights  : 
Her  eyes  can  give  much  brighter  days, 

Her  arms  much  softer  nights. 

This  did  not  prevent  him  from  enrolling  as  a 
volunteer  in  the  Dutch  war  of  1665,  when  he  was 
present  at  a  naval  battle,  and  when  the  song  which  he 
was  reported  to  have  written  on  the  eve  of  the  engage- 
ment was  brought  to  London  and  bandied  from  mouth 
to  mouth  about  the  town.  Dr.  Johnson  shows  himself 
sceptical  as  to  this  picturesque  legend  of  the  origin  of 
the  verses.  *'  Seldom  is  any  splendid  story  wholly 
true,"  he  observes;  and  continues,  "  I  have  heard  from 
the  Earl  of  Orrery,  that  Lord  Buckhurst  had  been  a 
week  employed  upon  it,  and  only  re-touched,  or 
finished  it,  on  the  memorable  evening."  However  this 
may  be,  both  song  and  story  remain:  I  have  told  the 
story,  and  quote  the  song: 

To  all  you  ladies  now  at  land 
We  men  at  sea  indite  ; 
But  first  would  have  you  understand 
How  hard  it  is  to  write  : 
The  Muses  now,  and  Neptune  too. 
We  must  implore  to  write  to  you. 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 
119 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

For  though  the  Muses  should  prove  kind 

And  fill  our  empty  brain. 
Yet  if  rough  Neptune  rouse  the  wind 

To  wave  the  azure  main, 
Our  paper,  pen  and  ink,  and  we. 
Roll  up  and  down  our  ships  at  sea. 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

Then  if  we  write  not  by  each  post. 

Think  not  we  are  unkind ; 
Nor  yet  conclude  our  ships  are  lost 

By  Dutchman  or  the  wind : 
Our  tears  we'll  send  a  speedier  way. 
The  tide  shall  bring  them  twice  a  day. 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

The  King  with  wonder  and  surprise 

Will  swear  the  seas  grow  bold. 
Because  the  tides  will  higher  rise 

Than  e'er  they  did  of  old  : 
But  let  him  know  it  is  our  tears 
Bring  floods  of  grief  to  Whitehall  stairs^ 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

Should  foggy  Opdam  chance  to  know 

Our  sad  and  dismal  story. 
The  Dutch  would  scorn  so  weak  a  foe 

And  quit  their  fort  at  Goree  ; 
For  what  resistance  can  they  find 
From  men  who've  left  their  hearts  behind  ? — 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

Let  wind  and  weather  do  its  worst. 

Be  you  to  us  but  kind. 
Let  Dutchmen  vapour,  Spaniards  curse, 

No  sorrow  we  shall  find  : 
'Tis  then  no  matter  how  things  go, 
Or  who's  our  friend,  or  who's  our  foe. 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

^This  refers  to  the  frequent  flooding  of  Whitehall  Palace  by  an  unusually 
high  tide. 

120 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

To  pass  our  tedious  hours  away 

We  throw  a  merry  main^ 
Or  else  at  serious  omhre  flay  ; 

But  why  should  we  in  vain 
Each  other  s  ruin  thus  pursue  ? 
We  were  undone  when  we  left  you^ 
With  afa^  la^  la^  la^  la. 

But  now  our  fears  tempestuous  grow 

And  cast  our  hopes  away  ; 
Whilst  you^  regardless  of  our  woe^ 

Sit  careless  at  a  play  ; 
Perhaps  permit  some  happier  man 
To  kiss  your  hand^  or  flirt  your  fan  ^ 
With  a  fa^  la^  la^  la^  la. 

When  any  mournful  tune  you  hear 

That  dies  in  every  note 
As  if  it  sighed  with  each  man  s  care 

For  being  so  remote., 
Think  then  how  often  love  we^ve  made 
To  you^  when  all  those  tunes  were  played, 
With  a  fa^  la^  la^  la^  la. 

In  justice  you  cannot  refuse 

To  think  of  our  distress. 
When  we  for  hopes  of  honour  lose 

Our  certain  happiness  : 
All  those  designs  are  but  to  prove 
Ourselves  more  worthy  of  your  love. 
With  a  J  a,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

And  now  weve  told  you  all  our  loves. 

And  likewise  all  our  fears. 
In  hopes  this  declaration  moves 

Some  pity  for  our  tears  : 
Let's  hear  of  no  inconstancy. 
We  have  too  much  of  that  at  sea — 
With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 


121 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

With  this  song — which  is  really  very  good  of  its 
kind,  and,  I  think,  deserves  its  fame — Pepys  says  that 
he  "  occasioned  much  mirth,"  although  at  the  time  of 
repeating  it  he  was  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
written  by  three  authors  in  collaboration.  It  seems  to 
have  achieved  popularity,  and  was  set  to  music,  also 
a  parody  was  written  of  it  by  Lord  Halifax  under  the 
title  '*  The  New  Court:  Being  an  Excellent  New  Song 
to  an  old  Tune  of  '  To  all  you  Ladies  now  at  hand  ' 
by  the  Earl  of  Dorset,"  and  of  which  the  following  is 
the  opening  verse: 

To  all  you  Tories  far  from  Court 

We  Courtiers  now  in  'play 
Do  write^  to  tell  you  how  we  sport 

And  laugh  the  hours  away. 
The  King,  the  Turks,  the  Prince,  and  all 
Attend  with  us  each  Feast  and  Ball. 
With  a  fa,  etc. 

It  is  shortly  after  this  battle  that  Nell  Gwyn  first 
appears  in  Lord  Buckhurst's  life.  London's  two 
theatres — the  Duke's  Theatre,  near  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  and  the  King's  Theatre,  or,  more  familiarly. 
The  Theatre,  in  Drury  Lane — were  then  the  great 
new  resort  and  amusement,  from  the  King  and  his 
brother  in  their  boxes  down  to  the  rabble  in  the  pit. 
Until  the  reign  of  Charles  II  the  presence  of  the  King 
in  a  common  play-house  was  an  unknown  thing:  such 
plays  or  masques  as  they  had  witnessed  were  always 
specially  performed  for  them  either  in  the  halls  or 
cock-pits  of  their  palaces,  but  it  now  became  the 
fashion  for  not  only  the  King  and  the  Duke  of  York, 
but  also  for  the  Queen  to  patronise  the  theatres.  There 
were  other  innovations.  The  public  was  no  longer  satis- 
fied with  the  makeshift  scenery  of  pre-Commonwealth 

122 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

days,  which  had  too  often  consisted  of  a  placard  hung 
upon  a  nail,  "  A  woodj'  or  "  A  throne-room,"'  or 
whatever  it  might  be.  Nor  were  the  dresses  of  the 
actors  as  careless  as  they  had  formerly  been,  but 
patrons  of  the  stage  would  give  their  old  clothes,  which, 
if  shabby,  were  no  doubt  still  sufficiently  magnificent 
to  produce  their  effect  at  a  distance.  Even  a  step 
further  in  progress  was  the  appearance  of  women  on 
the  stage,  "  foul  and  undecent  women  now,  and  never 
till  now,  permitted  to  appear  and  act,"  says  Evelyn, 
full  of  indignation,  **  who,  inflaming  several  young 
noblemen  and  gallants,  became  their  misses  and  to 
some  their  wives,  witness  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  Sir  R. 
Howard,  Prince  Rupert,  the  Earl  of  Dorset,  and 
another  greater  person  than  any  of  them."  A  theatre 
of  that  day  must  have  been  a  noisy,  ruffling,  ill-lighted 
place.  The  ceiling  immediately  above  the  pit  was 
either  open  to  the  sky  or  else  inadequately  covered 
over,  so  that  in  the  event  of  rain  the  whole  of  the  pit 
was  apt  to  surge  into  the  dry  parts  of  the  theatre.  The 
ladies  in  the  audience,  especially  if  the  performance 
happened  to  be  a  comedy,  sat  for  the  most  part  in 
masks.  The  sallow  face  of  the  King,  framed  by  the 
heavy  curls,  leered  down  over  the  edge  of  a  box.  In 
the  body  of  the  theatre  lounged  the  bucks  of  the 
town,  exchanging  pleasantry  and  impudence  with  the 
orange-girls  who  were  so  indispensable  a  feature. 

These  orange-girls  stood  in  the  pit,  crying 
**  Oranges  !  will  you  have  any  oranges  ?  "  and  were 
under  the  control  of  a  superior  known  as  Orange  Moll, 
a  famous  figure  of  London  theatre  life.  One  may  quote, 
to  give  some  further  idea  of  the  relations  between  the 
young  dandies  and  the  orange-sellers,  some  of  the 
stage   directions  in   Shadwell's    True   Widow,  in   the 

123 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

fourth  act,  laid  in  the  Playhouse,  "  Several  young  cox- 
combs fool  with  the  orange-women,"  or  "  He  sits 
down  and  lolls  in  the  orange-wench's  lap,"  or,  *'  Raps 
people  on  the  back  and  twirls  their  hats,  and  then  looks 
demurely,  as  if  he  did  not  do  it."  Amongst  these  girls, 
at  the  beginning  of  her  career,  was  Nell  Gwyn,  of 
whom  Rochester  wrote: 

.  ...  the  basket  her  fair  arm  did  suit^ 

Laden  with  pippins  and  Hesperian  fruit ; 

This  first  step  raised^  to  the  wondering  pit  she  sold 

The  lovely  fruit  smiling  with  streaks  of  gold^ 

and  who  has  come  down  to  us  as  a  figure  full  of  dis- 
reputable charm,  witty  Nelly,  pretty  Nelly,  Nelly 
whose  foot  was  least  of  any  woman's  in  England,  Nelly 
who  paid  the  debts  of  those  whom  she  saw  being  haled 
off  to  prison,  Nelly  the  pert,  the  apt,  the  kind-hearted, 
Nelly  who  "  continued  to  hang  on  her  clothes  with  her 
usual  negligence  when  she  was  the  King's  mistress,  but 
whatever  she  did  became  her."  This  merry  creature 
said  of  herself  that  she  was  brought  up  in  a  brothel  and 
served  strong  waters  to  gentlemen:  it  is  probable  that 
she  was  born  in  the  Coal  Yard  at  Drury  Lane  (now 
Goldsmith  Street),  and,  wherever  she  may  have  been 
brought  up,  at  a  very  early  age  she  joined  the  orange- 
girls  at  the  King's  Theatre.  In  due  time  her  looks  and 
her  wit  attracted  attention  and  she  went  on  the  stage. 
Pepys,  who  was  evidently  much  taken  with  the  *'  bold 
merry  slut,"  leaves  a  particularly  charming  record  of 
her  one  May  day: 

May  1st.  To  Westminster,  in  the  way  meeting  many 
milkmaids  with  their  garlands  upon  their  pails,  dancing  with 
a  fiddler  before  them  ;  and  saw  pretty  Nelly  standing  at  her 
lodgings  door  in  Drury  Lane  in  her  smock  sleeves  and 

124 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF   CHARLES   II 

bodice,  looking  upon  one ;  she  seemed  a  mighty  pretty 
creature. 

This  being  in  May  (1657),  when  Nell  was  sixteen,  and 

had  already  been  acting  for  at  least  two  years,  in  July 

of  the  same  year  the  diarist  was  told,  which  troubled 

him,  that  *'  my  Lord  Buckhurst  hath  got  Nell  away 

from  the  King's  House,  and  gives  her  ^loo  a  year,  so 

as  she  hath  sent  her  parts  to  the  house  and  will  act  no 

more."  ^^  ^    ^ 

IS  one  ever  had  so  strange  an  art 

His  passion  to  convey 

Into  a  listening  virgin  s  heart 

And  steal  her  soul  away 

was  sung  of  Buckhurst.  He  was  then  twenty-seven  or 
so,  Nell  Gwyn  sixteen,  and  together  they  kept  **  merry 
house  "  at  Epsom.  Pepys  went  down  to  Epsom  one 
day  and  heard  reports  of  their  merriments:  he  pitied 
Nelly,  exclaiming,  "  Poor  girl  !"  and  pitied  still  more 
her  loss  to  the  King's  Theatre;  but  he  does  not  ex- 
pressly state  whether  he  saw  the  pair  or  not.  In  any 
case,  the  housekeeping  at  Epsom  did  not  continue  for 
very  long,  for  by  August  she  was  again  acting  in 
London,  and  Pepys  had  **  a  great  deal  of  discourse  with 
Orange  Moll,  who  tells  us  that  Nell  is  already  left  by 
my  Lord  Buckhurst,  and  that  he  makes  sport  of  her, 
and  swears  she  hath  had  all  she  could  get  of  him."  It 
would  appear  from  this  that  Buckhurst,  contrary  to 
what  has  been  said  of  him,  did  not  sell  Nell  Gwyn  to 
the  King,  for  even  Pepys,  who  would  surely  have  been 
among  the  first  and  best  informed,  does  not  mention 
the  King  having  "  sent  for  Nelly  "  until  January  of 
the  following  year.  I  hope,  therefore,  that  the  charges 
of  his  having  accepted  bribes  in  exchange  for  Nelly 
may  be  exploded.  A  great  many  things  were  whispered 

125 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

— that  he  had  been  promised  the  peerage  of  Middlesex, 
that  he  had  been  given  a  thousand  pounds  a  year,  that 
he  had  been  sent  on  "  a  sleeveless  errand  "  into  France 
to  leave  the  coast  clear  for  the  King,  that  he  refused 
to  give  her  up  until  he  had  been  repaid  for  all  the 
expenses  she  had  entailed  upon  him.  I  do  not  think 
that  such  a  Jewish  spirit  is  at  all  in  keeping  with  the 
rest  of  his  character  as  we  know  it,  with  his  generosity 
and  general  lavishness,  nor  does  it  seem  probable 
that  he  would  so  have  bargained  with  a  king  whose 
favour  he  was  anxious  to  retain.  By  1669  it  is  certain 
that  Nell  was  definitely  the  King's  mistress  and  all 
connection  with  Buckhurst  over.  But  we  find  that 
years  afterwards  the  house  called  Burford  House,  at 
Windsor,  is  granted  by  Charles  II  to  Charles,  Earl  of 
Dorset  and  Middlesex,  W.  Chaffinch,  Esq.,  and  others, 
in  trust  for  Ellen  Gwyn  for  life,  with  remainder  to  the 
Earl  of  Burford,  the  King's  natural  son,  in  tail  male; 
further,  among  the  Knole  papers  is  the  original  deed 
of  1683  appointing  Lord  Dorset  her  trustee  and 
trustee  to  her  son  by  Charles  II;  and,  dated  1678, 
there  is  an  allusion  to  her  former  lover  in  one  of  Nell's 
infrequent  and  ill-spelt  letters:  *'  My  lord  Dorseit 
apiers  worze  in  thre  months,  for  he  drinks  aile  with 
Shadwell  and  Mr.  Haris  at  the  Duke's  house  all  day 
long." 

Nell  Gwyn  thus  passed  out  of  Lord  Buckhurst's  life, 
which  she  had  so  briefly  entered,  a  well-assorted  pair, 
I  think,  in  every  respect — he,  idle,  spoilt,  heavy  and 
magnificent;  she,  coarse,  witty,  feminine.  There  is  a 
portrait  of  her  at  Knole,  which  I  suppose  was  acquired 
by  him,  and  I  once  happened  to  see  a  set  of  spoons  in 
a  loan  exhibition  which  were  catalogued  as  bearing  the 
arms  of  Sackville  with  those  of  Nell   Gwyn.    The 

126 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES   II 

Sackville  shield  was  correct  enough,  but  whether  the 
other  quarterings  were  the  arms  of  Gwyn,  or  whether 
indeed  the  orange-girl  was  entitled  to  any  heraldic 
device,  I  am,  of  course,  unable  to  say. 

§  ill 

Pomp,  wealth,  and  infirmities  now  began  to  take  the 
place  of  brilliant  youth  and  comparative  irresponsi- 
bility. The  frivolous  Lord  Buckhurst  became  Earl  of 
Dorset  and  Middlesex,  he  succeeded  to  the  estates  of 
the  Cranfields,  he  married,  he  was  made  Lord  Cham- 
berlain, he  was  given  the  Garter,  and  he  had  a  fit  of 
apoplexy  in  the  King's  bedroom.  In  order  to  recover 
his  health  he  went  abroad ;  his  passport  is  at  Knole,  on 
yellow  parchment,  with  the  King's  signature  at  the  top : 

Charles  the  Second  by  the  Grace  of  God,  etc.,  to  all 
admirals,  vice-admirals,  captains  of  our  ships  at  sea, 
governors,  commanders,  soldiers,  mayors,  sheriffs,  justices 
of  the  peace,  bailiffs,  constables,  customers,  controllers, 
searchers,  and  all  other  our  loving  subjects  whom  it  may 
concern,  greeting  : 

Whereas  our  right  trusty  and  right  well-beloved  cousin 
Charles  Earl  oj  Dorset  and  Middlesex  hath  desired  our 
licence  to  go  beyond  the  seas  for  recovery  of  his  health,  we 
are  graciously  pleased  to  condescend  thereunto,  and  accord- 
ingly our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby  require, 
that  you  permit  and  suffer  the  said  Charles  Earl  of  Dorset 
and  Middlesex  with  six  servants  by  name  Richard  Raphael, 
Robert  Pennock,  Thomas  Bridges,  —  Solomon,  John 
Carter,  and  Christopher  Garner,  also  forty  pounds  in  money, 
and  all  baggage,  utensils,  carriages,  and  necessaries  to  the 
said  Earl  belonging,  freely  to  embark  in  any  of  our  ports  and 
from  thence  to  pass  beyond  the  seas  without  any  let, 
hindrance,  or  molestation  whatsoever.  And  you  are  likewise 
to   permit   the   said   Earl  and  his  servants  at  their  return 

127 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

back  into  this  Kingdom  to  pass  with  Hke  freedom,  into  the 
same,  affording  them  [as  there  may  be  occasion]  all  requisite 
aid  and  furtherance  as  well  going  as  returning.  And  for  so 
doing  this  shall  be  your  warrant. 

Given  at  our  court  at  Windsor,  the  23rd  day  of  August 
1 68 1,  in  the  three  and  thirtieth  year  of  our  reign. 

By  his  Ma'y'*  Command, 

L.    JENKINS. 

There  is  also  a  letter  from  one  of  the  servants  men- 
tioned in  the  passport,  saying  that  they  had  had  a  good 
passage  to  Dieppe,  "  except  Mr.  Raphael,  who  was 
kind  to  ye  fishes." 

There  is  another  letter,  from  the  Mr.  Raphael  in 
question,  written  home  to  Robert  Pennock  from  Paris 
while  on  the  same  journey,  saying  that  his  Lordship 
wants  the  pond  finished  against  the  spring,  orders  the 
gardener  to  manure  all  the  trees,  and  wishes  Pennock 
to  obtain  a  sure-footed  nag,  as  his  Lordship  intends 
for  the  future  only  to  make  use  of  a  saddle-horse 
between  Copt  Hall  and  London  to  prevent  the  pain 
of  the  gravel,  of  which  infirmity  his  Lordship  has 
lately  been  much  troubled. 

About  this  time  he  married.  I  have  in  my  hands  one 
of  his  love-letters,  in  faded  ink;  there  is  no  date,  no 
beginning,  and  no  signature:  it  is  superscribed  **  for 
the  Countess  of  Falmouth,"  and  enclosed  is  a  lock  of 
reddish-brown  hair — most  dead  and  poignant  token — 
of  surprising  length  when  one  considers  the  heavy  wig 
which  was  to  be  worn  over  it. 

I  must  beg  leave  that  we  may  be  a  little  earlier  than 
ordinary  at  Hick's  hall  today,  for  tomorrow,  i  may  be  so 
miserable  as  not  to  see  you  ;  besides  i  am  in  pain  till  i  can 
clear  some  doubts  that  have  kept  me  waking  all  night ; 
something  i  observed  in  your  looks  which  shewed  you  had 
been  displeased,  at  what  i  dare  not  ask  ;    but  till  i  know 

128 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

i  must  suffer  the  torment  of  uncertain  guessing  ;  though 
i  am  pretty  well  assured  i  could  not  be  concerned  in  it 
[more  than  in  the  trouble  it  gave  you]  ;  being  so  perfectly 
yours,  that  it  will  of  necessity  be  counted  your  own  fault 
if  ever  i  offend  you,  since  'tis  you  alone  have  the  government 
not  only  of  all  my  actions  but  of  my  very  thoughts,  to  con- 
firm you  in  the  belief  of  this  truth  i  do  from  this  moment 
give  up  to  you  all  my  pretences  to  freedom  or  any  power 
over  myself,  and  though  you  may  justly  think  it  below  you  to 
be  owned  the  sovereign  of  so  mean  a  dominion  as  my  heart, 
i  have  yet  confidence  upon  my  knees  to  offer  it  you  ;  since 
never  any  prince  could  boast  of  so  clear  a  title,  and  so 
absolute  power,  as  you  shall  ever  possess  in  it. 

We  know  a  good  deal  about  Lord  Dorset's  expenses 
and  finances.  We  know  that  on  the  death  of  his 
mother  he  obtained  an  additional  income  of  ^1744 
I4J-.  lid.  a  year  from  her  estates.  We  know  that 
thirty-four  houses  in  the  Strand  were  granted  to  him, 
and  let  as  follows: 

I      s.  d. 
23  houses  at  from  ^d  to  ffit^  each  950     7      i 

3  houses  built  by  him  and  let  at  ;^90  each       270     o     o 

Total  ;^i22o     7     I 

We  know  that  twenty-four  tenements  east  of  Somerset 
House  were  granted  to  him  for  ninety-nine  years  at 
a  yearly  rent  of  ^24  i  os.  \d. — and  that  out  of  them  he 
should  have  made  ^17 (i^  a  year,  as  witness  the  list 
I  reproduce,  taken  from  a  manuscript  at  Knole,  but 
either  he  or  his  bailiff  must  disgracefully  have  neglected 
his  business,  for  on  Lord  Dorset's  death  many  rents 
were  found  to  be  in  arrear,  one  tenant's  yearly  rent 
of  ^30  having  accumulated  to  the  sum  of  £2^$  5-f-  6^., 
or  nearly  eight  years'  owing,  and  another  rent  of 
yfiy   i8j.  4^.  had  accumulated  to  arrears  of  ^Ti  1 1 

129  I 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 


1 9J-.  I  o J^.  His  servants'  accounts,  too,  were  in  a  state 
of  confusion,  and  some  of  the  wages  unpaid  up  to  three 
years. 


Signs 


Rent 


The  Rising  Sun 

7  Stars  and  King's  Arms 

i 
64 
60 

s. 

0 

0 

0 
0 

60 

0 

0 

no 

0 

0 

Surgeon's  Arms 

60 

0 

0 

The  Golden  Ball 

60 

0 

0 

»         »       Key 

60 
60 

0 
0 

0 
0 

Mitre 

90 

0 

0 

3  Golden  [?] 
Black  Lion 

90 
90 

0 
0 

0 
0 

Golden  Fleece 

40 

0 

0 

60 

0 

0 

Golden  [?] 

48 

0 

0 

Two  Cats 

60 

0 

0 

60 

0 

0 

70 

0 

0 

Hen  and  Chicken 

60 

0 

0 

Spread  Eagle,  a  Bath  house 

40 

0 

0 

13 

0 

0 

3  Black  Lions 

60 

0 

0 

The  Angel 

70 

0 

0 

The  Dorset  Arms  Tavern 

55 
140 

0 
0 

0 
0 

Swan 

?,?> 

0 

0 

Bull  Head  Tavern 

55 
24 

0 
0 

0 
0 

The  Dial 

34 

0 

0 

Ship  and  Bale 
The  Peacock 

34 

8 

0 
0 

0 
0 

1768     o     o 

His  total  income  for  the  year  1698-99  was  £76^0 
4^.  3  J^. — the  curious  accuracy  of  these  sums  does  not 

130 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

seem  to  tally  with  the  confusion  to  which  I  have 
referred — that  is  to  say,  about  ^40,000  of  modern 
money.  It  may  be  interesting,  while  on  this  subject,  to 
show  some  of  the  means  common  among  the  great 
nobles  for  filling  their  pockets.  In  1 697,  for  instance, 
we  read  that  "  My  Lord  Chamberlain  Dorset  has  sold 
the  keepership  of  Greenwich  Park  to  the  Earl  of 
Romney  "  [James  Vernon  to  Matthew  Prior],  and  in 
the  same  year — this  is  when  he  was  getting  on  in  years 
and  entirely  withdrawing  from  politics — "  Lord  Dor- 
set hath  resigned  his  office  of  Lord  Chamberlain  to  the 
Earl  of  Sunderland  for  the  sum  of  ten  thousand 
pounds,"  but  where  was  this  sum  to  come  from  ?  not 
out  of  Lord  Sunderland's  pocket;  no,  but  "  which  his 
Majesty  pays  J*'  There  was  yet  another  method  by 
which  money  might  conveniently  be  raised :  it  is  well 
illustrated  by  Dorset's  petition  regarding  the  dues  on 
tobacco : 

To  the  King's  most  Ex^  Ma*y 

The  humble  Petition  of  charles  Earl  of  Middlesex. 
Humbly  Sheweth 

That  by  the  act  [for  preventing  planting  of  tobacco  in 
England  and  for  regulating  the  Plantation  Trade]  all 
ships  that  shall  return  from  any  of  yr  Maj''"  foreign 
plantations  and  not  return  to  yr  Maj"^«  Kingdom  of 
England,  Dominion  of  Wales  or  Town  of  Berwick 
upon  Tweed,  and  there  pay  the  customs  and  duties 
.  .  .  shall  be  confisable  and  their  bonds  forfeited. 
That  the  Phenix  of  London,  Richard  Pidgeon  Com- 
mander and  several  other  ships  have  .  .  .  discharged 
merchandizes  of  the  growth  of  yr  Maj''"  Plantations, 
in  yr  Kingdom  of  Ireland,  so  that  by  law  they  are  for- 
feited as  by  the  said  Act  produceable  may  appear. 

May  it  therefore  please  yr  Sacred  Maj'y  to  grant 
yr  Petitioner  all  forfeitures  as  well  past  as  to  come  on 
accompt  of  the  said  Act,  with  power  to  depute  such 

131 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

persons  as  he  shall  think  fitting,  to  look  upon  and  take 
care  that  no  such  abuses  shall  be  in  ye  future. 

[KnoleMSS.  1671.] 

To  this  petition  I  should  like  to  add  another,  repre- 
senting the  other  point  of  view,  that  of  the  unfortunate 
people  who  had  the  King's  soldiers  quartered  upon 
them  in  intolerable  numbers,  and  were,  as  it  appears, 
not  refunded  for  the  expenses  to  which  they  had  been 
put.  I  add  this  the  more  willingly,  as  Dorset  was 
commonly  reputed  the  friend  of  the  poor,  and  it  is  said 
of  him  that  "  crowds  of  poor  daily  thronged  his  gates, 
expecting  thence  their  bread.  The  lazy  and  the  sick, 
as  he  accidentally  saw  them,  were  removed  from  the 
street  to  the  physician,  and  not  only  cured  but  supplied 
with  what  might  enable  them  to  resume  their  former 
calling.  The  prisoner  has  often  been  released  by  my 
Lord's  paying  the  debt,  and  the  condemned  been 
pardoned,  through  his  intercession  with  the  sovereign." 

To    the    Right     Hon^^'  c  h  a  r  l  e  s   Earl    of  Dorset    and 
Middlesex. 

The  humble  petition  of  the  Innholders  and  Alehouse 
Keepers  in  the  parish  of  Sevenoaks  in  the  county  of  Kent, 
Humbly  Sheweth, 

That  your  said  petitioners  have  every  year  since  ye 
coming  of  his  present  Majesty  had  either  foot  or  horse 
quartered  on  them,  even  much  beyond  their  neigh- 
bours .  .  .  The  said  innkeepers  are  willing  to  serve 
their  King  and  Country,  but  beyond  their  ability  can- 
not, they  therefore  humbly  pray  that  care  may  be  taken 
for  procuring  their  arrears  due,  or  at  least  to  prevent 
more  soldiers  coming  on  them,  which  they  understand 
are,  unless  your  Honour  will  stand  in  the  gap    .    .    . 

[Knole  MSS.'] 

Some  of  the  foregoing  papers,  then,  account  for  his 
income;    we  have  also  some  notes  as  to  his  expenses. 

132 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

To  his  servants  he  paid  ^8  to  ^i  o  a  year  for  "  ordinary 
men  and  maids."    For  beef  he  paid  2s.  a  stone;    for 
mutton,  3^.  a  pound;   pullets  were  6^.  each;   a  goose 
was  IJ-.  8^.;  a  pheasant,  ij-.;  a  hare,  8^.;  a  tongue,  ij-.; 
a  partridge,  9^.;   a  pigeon,  3^.;   a  turkey,  2s.  td.\   a 
calf's  head,    \s.    bd.    A   bushel  of  oysters   cost  him 
4J-.  bd,\   a  peck  of  damsons,  is.  Wheat  cost  him  yj.  a 
bushel;    salt,  ^s,  a  bushel.    For  130  walnuts  he  paid 
I  J".  6^.,  and  for  a  dozen  candles  5/.  bd. — a  surprising 
price.    We  have  also  a  detailed  account  of  his  cellar. 
For  strong  beer  he  paid   35J.  a  hogshead,  and   for 
small    beer    \os,   a  hogshead.     From  July    1690  to 
November    1691    his   total   wine    bill    amounted   to 
^598  19^-.  4^.,  an  alarming  sum  when  we  reflect  that 
he  was  paying  only  t^s.  id.  for  a  gallon  of  red  port, 
6s.  Sd.  for  a  gallon  of  sherry,  and  8j".  for  a  gallon  of 
canary.   We  are  given  the  details  entered  in  the  cellar 
from  August  1690  to  January   1691;    they  are  suffi- 
ciently formidable:  425  gallons  of  red  port,  85  gallons 
of  sherry,  72  gallons  of  canary,  63  gallons  of  white 
port,  and  a  quart  of  hock.   One  wonders  whether  Lord 
Dorset  was  **  laying  down,"  or  whether  this  quantity 
was  adequate  only  to  the  six  months  shown  on  the 
account  book. 

Lord  Dorset  seems  to  have  carried  large  sums  of 
money  about  on  his  person,  for  the  steward's  account 
book  at  Knole  shows  a  regular  daily  entry  of  i  oj-.  for 
loose  change  to  his  Lordship,  and  when  he  was  set 
upon  by  footpads  near  Tyburn  they  robbed  him  not 
only  of  his  gold  George,  but  also  of  forty  or  fifty 
pounds.  This  does  not  perhaps  seem  a  very  enormous 
sum  for  a  wealthy  man  to  carry,  but  it  must  always  be 
remembered  that  in  order  to  obtain  the  modern 
equivalent  it  is  necessary  to  multiply  by  at  least  five. 

133 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Before  leaving  the  Knole  papers  of  this  date — and 
there  is  much  that  I  have  regretfully  discarded,  many 
letters,  for  instance,  regarding  the  election  of  Lord 
Buckhurst  to  the  House  of  Commons,  which  throw 
interesting  sidelights  upon  the  methods  of  electioneer- 
ing in  the  early  days  of  Charles  II — I  should  like  to 
quote  one  letter  of  unknown  authorship,  relating  to 
the  Rye  House  Plot.  The  letter  is  addressed  to  Lord 
Dorset:  it  is  unsigned  and  undated,  but  the  date  must 
be  placed,  by  virtue  of  internal  evidence,  in  July  1683, 
by  reason  of  the  reference  to  Captain  Walcot  who  was 
tried  on  July  1 2th  in  connection  with  the  plot. 

The  party  that  went  for  my  Lord  Essex  found  him  in  his 
garden  gathering  of  nut-meg  peaches,  he  was  lodged  in  my 
Lord  Feversham's  lodgings,  in  Whitehall,  and  the  next  day, 
having  not  made  use  of  the  favour  of  pen  and  ink,  so  well 
as  my  Lord  Howard  hath,  he  was  sent  to  the  Tower. 

My  Lord  Howard  runs  like  a  spout,  fresh,  and  fresh  he 
hath  writ  enough  to  hang  himself,  and  i  hundred  more,  and 
cried  enough  to  drown  himself,  he  hath  cast  his  lodgings  in 
Whitehall. 

Sir  John  Burlace  was  brought  before  the  Council  yester- 
day, upon  sending  intelligence  to  my  Lord  Lovelace  that 
there  was  a  warrant  against  him.  He  stayed  one  night  in  the 
messenger's  hands  and  was  this  morning  bail  for  my  Lord 
Lovelace,  and  both  of  them  dismissed. 

The  enclosed  is  an  account  how  far  the  Grand  Jury  hath 
proceeded,  that  little  note  hath  the  names  of  some  of  the 
Grand  Jury. 

None  were  tried  this  afternoon  but  Capt.  Walcot  who  was 
cast  by  a  most  clear  evidence  being  at  several  consults,  the 
places  all  named,  his  raising  of  arms,  his  own  letter  to  the 
King,  and  one  of  the  consults  was  at  the  Vulture,  Ludgate 
Hill,  and  Sheppard's  House,  he  had  very  little  to  say  for 
himself,  but  that  the  witnesses  swore  away  his  life  to  secure 
their  own,  he  excepted  against  all  Jury  men  that  were  of  the 
lieutenancy  and  behaved  himself  with  a  great  deal  of  decency 

134 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

and  resolution.  They  had  a  declaration  ready  drawn  by 
Goodenough  so  soon  as  ever  the  King  was  killed,  and 
particular  men  appointed  to  murder  the  most  considerable 
persons.  Borne  by  name  was  to  kill  this  Lord  Keeper,  and 
refused  it  because  it  looked  like  an  unneighbourly  thing,  my 
Lord  pulled  off  his  hat  and  said  Thank  you,  neighbour, 

I  find  also,  dated  1690,  this  curious  vocabulary  of 
thieves'  slang  scribbled  on  the  back  of  some  par- 
ticulars relating  to  the  appointment  of  a  new  incum- 
bent for  Sevenoaks.  Unfortunately  half  the  alphabet  is 
missing: 


Autem  mort 

a  marryed  woman 

Abram 

naked 

abram-cour 

a  tatterdemalion 

autem 

a  church 

boughar 

a  cur 

bouse 

drink 

bousing-ken 

an  ale-house 

borde 

a  shilHng 

boung 

a  purse 

bing 

to  goe 

bing  a  wast 

to  goe  away 

bube 

ye  pox 

huge 

a  dog 

bleating-cheat 

a  sheep 

billy-cheat 

an  apron 

bite  ye  peter  or  Roger 

steal  ye  portmantle 

budge 
bulk  and  file 

one  that  steals  cloaks 

a  pickpocket  and  his 

cokir 

a  lyar 

cuffin  quire 

a  justice 

crampings 

bolts  and  shackles 

chats 

ye  gallows 

crackmans 

hedges 

calle 

togeman   ' 

a  cloak 

Joseph 

couch 

to  lye  asleep 

^35 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 


couch  a  hogshead 

commission 

mish 

cackling-cheat 

cassan 

crash 

crashing-cheat 

cloy 

cut 

cut  bien  whydds 

cut  quire  whydds 

confeck 

cly  ye  jerk 

dimber 

damber 

drawers 

duds 

deusea  vile 

dommerer 

darkmans 

dup 

tip  me  my  earnest 

filch 

ferme 

fambles 

fambles  cheats 

fib 

flag 

fogus 

fencing  cully 

glimmer 

glaziers 

granna 

gentry  more 

gun 

grunting-cheat 

giger 

gybe 

glasier 


136 


to  goe  to  sleep 

a  shirt 

a  chicken 

cheese 

to  kill 

teeth 

to  steal 

to  speak 

to  speak  well 

to  speak  evil! 

counterfeit 

to  be  whipt 

pretty 

rascall 

stockings 

goods 

ye  country 

a  madman 

night  or  even 

to  enter 

give  me  my  part 

a  staffe 

a  hole 

hands 

rings  and  gloves 

to  beat 

a  groat 

tobacco 

one  that  receives  stolne  goods 

fire 

eyes 

corne 

a  gallant  wench 

lip 

a  pot  or  pipe 

a  sucking  pig 

a  dore 

a  passe 

one  that  goes  in  at  windows 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 


gilt 

harmanbeck 

heave  a  book 

half  berd 

heartsease 

knapper  of  knappers 

lightmans 

lib 

libben 

lage 

libedge 

lullabye-cheat 

lap 

lucries 

maunder 

magery  prater 

muffling-cheat 

mumpers 


a  picklock 

a  constable 

to  rob  a  house 

sixpence 

20  shillings 

a  sheep  stealer 

morning  or  day 

to  tumble 

an  house 

water 

a  bed 

a  child 

pottage 

all  manner  of  clothes 

to  beg 

an  hen 

a  napkin 

gentile  beggars  ^ 


§ 


IV 


In  1685  Charles  II  died,  and  with  him  departed  that 
devil-may-care  existence  into  which  Lord  Dorset  had 
fitted  so  readily  and  so  well.  He  was  no  favourite  with 
the  new  King;  for  one  thing  he  had  addressed  verses 
in  this  vein  to  Lady  Dorchester,  mistress  of  James  II  : 

Tell  me,  Dorinda,  why  so  gay, 

JVhy  such  embroidery,  fringe,  and  lace  ? 

Can  any  dresses  find  a  way 

To  stop  tK  approaches  of  decay, 
And  mend  a  ruined  face  ? 

Wilt  thou  still  sparkle  in  the  box. 

Still  ogle  in  the  ring  ? 
Canst  thou  forget  thy  age  and  pox  ? 
Can  all  that  shines  on  shells  and  rocks 

Make  thee  a  fine  young  thing  ? 

1  See  Appendix. 
137 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLE*S 

He  appears  also  at  this  time  to  have  grown  more 
serious  in  his  outlook,  for  he  disapproved  of  the  new 
King  so  strongly  as  to  have  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
accession  of  William  III  to  the  English  throne.  He 
was  instrumental,  indeed,  in  arranging  the  escape  of 
Princess  (afterwards  Queen)  Anne: 

That  evening  [says  Macau/ay]  Anne  retired  to  her 
chamber  as  usual.  At  dead  of  night  she  rose,  and,  accom- 
panied by  her  friend  Sarah  [Churchill]  and  two  other  female 
attendants,  stole  down  the  back  stairs  in  a  dressing-gown  and 
slippers.  The  fugitives  gained  the  open  street  unchallenged. 
A  hackney  coach  was  in  waiting  for  them  there.  Two  men 
guarded  the  humble  vehicle.  One  of  them  was  Compton, 
Bishop  of  London,  the  princess'  old  tutor  ;  the  other  was  the 
magnificent  and  accomplished  Dorset,  whom  the  extremity 
of  the  public  danger  had  roused  from  his  luxurious  repose. 
The  coach  drove  instantly  to  Aldersgate  Street  .  .  .  there 
the  princess  passed  the  night.  On  the  following  morning  she 
set  out  for  Epping  Forest.  In  that  wild  tract  [it  is  amusing 
to  think  of  Epping  as  a  wild  tract] — in  that  wild  tract  Dorset 
possessed  a  venerable  mansion  [Copt  Hall],  the  favourite 
resort,  during  many  years,  of  wits  and  poets  .  .  . 

but  Macaulay  was  evidently  not  in  possession  of,  or 
else  ignored  (although  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
incident  would  not  have  tempted  his  picturesque  and 
vivid  pen),  the  detail  related  by  Dorset's  grandson,  Lord 
George  Sackville,  that 

one  of  her  Royal  Highness'  shoes  sticking  fast  in  the  mud, 
the  accident  threatened  to  impede  her  escape  ;  but  Lord 
Dorset,  immediately  drawing  off  his  white  glove,  put  it  on 
the  Princess'  foot,  and  placed  her  safely  in  the  carriage. 

That  Lord  Dorset  had  no  sympathy  with  popery  is 
proved  by  this  letter,  which  is  among  the  Duke  of 
Rutland's  papers: 

138 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

Lord  Dorset  last  night  [27th  January  1688]  while  at 
supper  at  Lady  Northampton's,  received  the  following  letter 
with  cross  on  top  : 

+ 
'Twere  pity  that  one  of  the  best  of  men  should  be  lost 
for  the  worst  of  causes.  Do  not  sacrifice  a  life  everybody 
values  for  a  religion  yourself  despise.  Make  your  peace 
with  your  lawful  sovereign,  or  know  that  after  this  27th 
of  January  you  have  not  long  to  live.  Take  this  warning 
from  a  friend  before  repentance  is  in  vain  ; 

and  it  is  apparent  that  he  had  not  lost  touch  with  his 
old  friends  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II,  for  we  find,  in 
1688,  that  he  placed  Knole  at  the  disposal  of  the  Queen 
Dowager  (Catherine  of  Braganza), 

without  any  consideration  of  rent,  besides  the  sole  use  of  his 
park,  and  if  she  makes  any  alterations  to  have  timber  out 
of  his  woods  for  that  purpose.  The  Queen  Dowager  will 
consider  the  repairs  of  the  Lord  Dorset's  house,  which  will 
amount  to  ;£2  0,000. 

But  whether  she  availed  herself  of  the  offer,  for  how- 
ever short  a  period,  I  cannot  say. 

Lord  Dorset  was  in  favour  with  William  III,  and 
continued  to  hold  his  office  of  Lord  Chamberlain  until 
he  resigned  it  in  1697.  This  was  the  date  when  he 
withdrew  from  all  public  life.  His  second  wife  had 
died  six  years  before ;  Dorset  himself  was  approaching 
sixty,  and  the  excesses  of  his  youth  had  long  since 
begun  to  tell.  The  end  of  a  life  which  opened  with 
such  gaiety  and  eclat  offers  a  very  sordid  picture. 
From  his  portraits  it  is  easy  to  see  that  he  has  grown 
heavy  and  apoplectic:  his  features  are  coarsened  and 
swollen;  his  double  chins  hang  in  folds  over  his 
voluminous  robes,  his  ruffles,  and  his  ribbons.  He 
could  not  hope  to  enjoy  his  life  at  both  ends.     Those 

139 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

must  have  been  good  days  when  he  got  drunk  with 
Sedley,  or  kept  house  with  Nelly  at  Epsom,  or  ex- 
changed witticisms  with  the  King  in  the  passages  at 
Whitehall,  or  sat  after  supper  round  the  dining-room 
table  at  Knole  with  Dryden  and  Killigrew  and 
Rochester;  but  after  running  up  the  account  the  debt 
had  to  be  paid  at  last.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Prior, 
who  owed  him  everything,  to  get  gracefully  out  of  a 
difficulty  by  saying  that  he  drivelled  better  sense  than 
most  men  could  talk:  the  remainder  of  the  account  is 
not  pretty  to  contemplate.  **  A  few  years  before  he 
died,"  is  the  story  told  by  his  grandson.  Lord  George 
Sackville,  "  he  married  a  woman  named  Roche  of  very 
obscure  connections,  who  held  him  in  a  sort  of 
captivity  down  at  Bath,  where  he  expired  at  about 
sixty-nine."  There  is  a  contemporary  letter,  which 
says,  *'  My  Lord  Dorset  owns  his  marriage  with  one 
of  his  acquaintances,  one  of  the  Roches.  Do  you  think 
anyone  will  pity  him  ?  "  **  She  suffered  few  persons 
to  approach  him  during  his  last  illness,  or  rather, 
decay,"  Lord  George's  account  continues,  "  and  was 
supposed  to  have  converted  his  weakness  of  mind  to 
her  own  objects  of  personal  acquisition.  He  was  indeed 
considered  to  be  fallen  into  a  state  of  such  imbecility  as 
would  render  it  necessary  to  appoint  guardians,  with  a 
view  to  prevent  his  injuring  the  family  estate,  but  the 
intention  was  nevertheless  abandoned.  You  have  no 
doubt  heard,  and  it  is  a  fact,  that  with  a  view  of  ascer- 
taining whether  Lord  Dorset  continued  to  be  of  a  sane 
mind.  Prior,  whom  he  had  patronised  and  always 
regarded  with  predilection,  was  sent  down  to  Bath  by 
the  family.  Having  obtained  access  to  the  Earl,  and 
conversed  with  him.  Prior  made  his  report  in  these 
words,  "  Lord  Dorset  is  certainly  greatly  declined  in 

140 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

his  understanding,  but  he  drivels  so  much  better  sense 
even  now  than  any  other  man  can  talk,  that  you  must 
not  call  me  into  court  as  a  witness  to  prove  him  an 
idiot."  Congreve,  appropriating  the  gist  of  the  remark, 
observed  after  visiting  Dorset  on  his  deathbed,  "  Faith, 
he  slabbers  more  wit  dying  than  other  people  do  in 
their  best  health."  Swift  also,  who  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Lady  Betty  Germaine  and  the  Dorsets  in  the 
succeeding  generation,  remarks  that  Charles  grew  dull 
in  his  old  age.  Ann  Roche,  who  guarded  so  jealously 
her  ancient  and  mouldy  bird  of  Paradise,  managed  to 
provide  handsomely  for  herself  under  his  will.  He  left 
her  not  only  the  house  in  Stable  Yard,  St.  James,  which 
was  hers  before  her  marriage,  but  also  lands  and 
messuages  in  Sussex,  two  beds  with  the  furniture  there- 
unto belonging  in  his  house  at  Knole,  the  furniture  of 
two  rooms  there,  all  the  household  linen  there,  and 
^500  to  be  increased  to  ^20,000  if  his  son  should  die 
without  issue.  The  marriage  only  lasted  a  short  time, 
for  in  1 705  Lord  Dorset  died — old,  enfeebled,  and  semi- 
imbecile. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  he  left  a  number  of 
illegitimate  children :  we  know  of  atleast  four  for  certain, 
and  there  was  probably  a  fifth,  a  son,  as  it  is  difficult  to 
account  otherwise  for  the  William  Sackville  who  writes, 
signing  a  remarkably  ungrammatical  letter  with  a  re- 
markably beautiful  signature,  to  ask  for  money,  as  he  has 
lately  *'  gained  the  affection  of  a  young  lady,"  and  this, 
he  promises,  will  be  "  the  last  trouble  that  ever  I  shall 
give  your  Lordship ;  it  would  come  very  seasonable  to 
my  present  circumstances  who  has  been  harassed  and 
ruined  by  the  fate  of  war  this  four  years  past  and  have 
done  the  government  good  service,  and  never  rewarded 
as  those  that  deserved  it  less  has."  The  other  four  were 

141 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

daughters.  There  is  a  petition  at  Knole  from  one  of 
them: 

To  the  Right  Hon.  c  h  a  r  l  e  s  Earl  of  Dorset  and 
Middlesex,  Lord  Chamberlain  of  Their  Majesties'  House- 
hold, the  humble  petition  of  mary  sackville  : 

That  it  having  pleased  ye  Almighty  to  lay  his  afflicting 
band  on  your  petitioner's  husband  and  her  two  small 
children  for  a  long  time  together,  having  nothing  to  live 
upon  but  his  own  hands'  labour,  which  failing  him  during 
his  sickness  all  his  family  have  suffered  thereby  and  been 
put  to  great  straights  and  having  received  much  of  your 
Honour's  charity,  is  now  .  .  .  [illegible]  but  hopes  that 
your  Lordship  will  consider  it  is  the  hand  of  accident  that 
is  hard  upon  her. 

Your  petitioner  therefore  humbly  prays  that  your  Honour 
will  be  pleased  to  bestow  something  on  her  this  time  that 
she  may  undergo  her  calamity  with  a  little  more  cheerfulness 
and  alacrity. 

According  to  the  will  of  this  Mary  Sackville,  her 
circumstances  must  have  improved,  for  she  leaves 
^1000  "for  the  benefit  of  Katherine  Sackville  my 
sister  or  reputed  sister  who  was  born  of  the  body  of 
Mrs.  Phillipa  Wald grave,  deceased,  my  late  mother  or 
reputed  mother."  This  will  is  dated  1684,  ^^  I  should 
think  the  Katherine  Sackville  referred  to  is  probably 
the  *'  K.  S."  who  was  buried  at  Withyham,  aged 
fourteen,  in  1690 — humble  little  initials  among  the 
Lady  Annes  and  Lady  Elizabeths  who  surround  her. 
She  had  been  provided  for  in  Lord  Dorset's  will  also: 

To  my  natural  daughter  Katherine  Sackville,  alias  Wal- 
grave,  ;^iooo. 

To  my  natural  daughter  Mary  Sackville,  alias  Walgrave, 
;^2oo,  and  ;^2ooo  before  settled  on  her. 

To  my  natural  daughter  An  [sic]  Lee,  alias  Sackville,  the 
sum  of  ;^5oo. 

142 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

It  thus  seems  probable  that  these  daughters  were  the 
children  of  two  different  mothers,  Lee  and  Walgrave, 
Waldgrave,  Waldegrave,  as  it  was  variously  spelt. 
An  agreement  at  Knole,  dated  1674,  provides  for 
PhilHpa  Walgrave  to  receive  interest  on  £1000  placed 
in  Mr.  Guy's  hands  by  Lord  Dorset,  the  interest  on 
it  to  be  paid  to  her  yearly,  and  after  her  death  to  Mary 
Sackville  until  her  marriage  or  until  the  age  of  21,  but 
if  Mrs.  Walgrave  marries,  the  ^i  000  is  to  be  paid  to  her. 
Another  natural  daughter,  also  named  Mary,  married 
Lord  Orrery,  but  I  do  not  know  who  was  her  mother. 

He  had  been  one  of  the  most  notorious  libertines  of  the 
wild  time  which  followed  the  Restoration.  He  had  been  the 
terror  of  the  city  watch,  had  passed  many  nights  in  the 
round  house,  and  had  at  least  once  occupied  a  cell  in  New- 
gate. His  passion  for  Nell  Gwyn,  who  always  called  him  her 
Charles  the  First,  had  given  no  small  amusement  and  scandal 
to  the  town.  Yet,  in  the  midst  of  follies  and  vices,  his 
courageous  spirit,  his  fine  understanding,  and  his  natural 
goodness  of  heart,  had  been  conspicuous.  Men  said  that  the 
excesses  in  which  he  indulged  were  common  between  him 
and  the  whole  race  of  gay  young  Cavaliers,  but  that  his 
sympathy  with  human  suffering  and  the  generosity  with 
which  he  made  reparation  to  those  whom  his  freaks  had 
injured  were  all  his  own.  His  associates  were  astonished  by 
the  distinction  which  the  public  made  between  him  and  them. 
"  He  may  do  what  he  chooses,"  said  Wilmot,  "  he  is  never 
in  the  wrong."  The  judgment  of  the  world  became  still 
more  favourable  to  Dorset  when  he  had  been  sobered  by 
time  and  marriage.  His  graceful  manners,  his  brilliant  con- 
versation, his  soft  heart,  his  open  hand,  were  universally 
praised.  No  day  passed,  it  was  said,  in  which  some  dis- 
tressed family  had  not  reason  to  bless  his  name.  And  yet, 
with  all  his  good  nature,  such  was  the  keenness  of  his  wit 
that  scoffers  whose  sarcasm  all  the  town  feared  stood  in 

143 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

craven  fear  of  the  sarcasm  of  Dorset.  All  political  parties 
esteemed  and  caressed  him,  but  politics  were  not  much  to  his 
taste.  Had  he  been  driven  by  necessity  to  exert  himself,  he 
would  probably  have  risen  to  the  highest  posts  in  the  state  ; 
but  he  was  born  to  rank  so  high  and  to  wealth  so  ample  that 
many  of  the  motives  which  impel  men  to  engage  in  public 
affairs  were  wanting  to  him.  .  .  .  Like  many  other  men 
who,  with  great  natural  abilities,  are  constitutionally  and 
habitually  indolent,  he  became  an  intellectual  voluptuary, 
and  a  master  of  all  those  pleasing  branches  of  knowledge 
which  can  be  acquired  without  severe  application.  He  was 
allowed  to  be  the  best  judge  of  painting,  of  sculpture,  of 
architecture,  of  acting,  that  the  court  could  show.  On 
questions  of  polite  learning  his  decisions  were  regarded  at  all 
the  coffee  houses  as  without  appeal.  More  than  one  clever 
play  which  had  failed  on  the  first  representation  was  sup- 
ported by  his  single  authority  against  the  whole  clamour  of 
the  pit  and  came  forth  successful  at  the  second  trial.  .  .  . 

Macaulay  thus  summarises  his  career  and  character, 
and  I  am  led  quite  naturally  to  the  consideration  of  one 
aspect  of  his  life  on  which  I  have  scarcely  touched,  and 
that  is  his  connection  with  the  men  of  letters  of  his 
day.  The  often-quoted  saying,  that  Butler  owed  to 
him  that  the  court  tasted  his  Hudibras,  Wycherley 
that  the  town  liked  his  Plain  Dealer,  and  that  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  deferred  the  publication  of  his 
Rehearsal  until  he  was  sure  that  Lord  Buckhurst  would 
not  rehearse  it  upon  him  again — this  saying  had  much 
truth  in  it.  It  is  better,  I  think,  to  quote  the  dis- 
interested opinion  of  Macaulay  rather  than  the 
panegyrics  of  Prior  or  Dryden,  or  any  of  the  con- 
temporary authors  who  stood  too  greatly  in  Dorset's 
debt  for  complete  impartiality: 

Such  a  patron  of  letters  England  had  never  seen  [says 
Macaulay].  His  bounty  was  bestowed  with  equal  judgment 
and  liberality,  and  was  confined  to  no  sect  or  faction.  Men 
of  genius,  estranged  from  each  other  by  literary  jealousy  or 

144 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

difference  of  political  opinion,  joined  in  acknowledging  his 
impartial  kindness.  Dryden  owned  that  he  had  been  saved 
from  ruin  by  Dorset's  princely  generosity.  Yet  Montague 
and  Prior,  who  had  keenly  satirised  Dryden,  were  introduced 
by  Dorset  into  public  life  ;  and  the  best  comedy  of  Dryden 's 
mortal  enemy,  Shadwell,  was  written  at  Dorset's  country 
seat.  The  munificent  earl  might,  if  such  had  been  his  wish, 
have  been  the  rival  of  those  of  whom  he  was  content  to  be 
the  benefactor.  For  the  verses  which  he  occasionally  com- 
posed, unstudied  as  they  are,  exhibit  the  traces  of  a  genius 
which,  assiduously  cultivated,  would  have  produced  some- 
thing great.  In  the  small  volume  of  his  works  may  be  found 
songs  which  have  the  easy  vigour  of  Suckling,  and  little 
satires  which  sparkle  with  wit  as  splendid  as  those  of  Butler. 

One  can,  perhaps,  scarcely  agree  with  Macaulay  in  this 
estimate  of  Dorset's  literary  gifts.  The  songs  he  wrote 
are  little  more  than  easy  specimens  of  conventional 
Restoration  verse,  and,  for  my  part,  I  fail  to  find  in  them, 
with  the  exception  of  "  To  all  you  ladies  now  at  land," 
any  merit  which  was  not  shared  by  all  the  numerous 
song-writers  of  the  day.  It  certainly  cannot  be  claimed 
for  him  that  he  had  any  of  the  vigour,  originality,  or 
true  poetic  impulse  of  his  great-great-grandfather,  the 
old  Lord  Treasurer,  and  although  it  may  be  argued 
that  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  the  age  of  the  Restoration 
differed  totally  in  poetic  conception  and  spontaneity, 
I  still  do  not  admit  that  Dorset  possessed  those  qualities 
which  might  have  made  up  in  one  direction  for  those 
which  were  lacking  in  another,  I  have  already  quoted 
his  sea-song,  unquestionably  the  best  thing  he  ever 
wrote,  and,  to  give  point  to  my  argument,  will  quote 
two  further  songs,  which  may  stand  as  typical  examples, 
the  first  of  his  graceful  but  entirely  artificial  talent,  the 
second  of  his  satire  which  caused  Rochester  to  say  of  him  : 

For  pointed  satire  I  would  Buckhurst  choose. 
The  best  good  man  with  the  worst  natured  muse. 

145  K 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

SONG 

Phyllis^  for  shame^  let  us  improve 

A  thousand  different  ways 
Those  few  short  moments  snatched  by  love 

From  many  tedious  days. 

If  you  want  courage  to  despise 

The  censure  of  the  grave, 
Though  Love's  a  tyrant  in  your  eyes. 

Tour  heart  is  but  a  slave. 

My  love  is  full  of  noble  pride 

Nor  can  it  e'er  submit 
To  let  that  fop.  Discretion,  ride 

In  triumph  over  it. 

False  friends  I  have,  as  well  as  you. 

Who  daily  counsel  me 
Fame  and  ambition  to  pursue 

And  leave  off  loving  thee. 

But  when  the  least  regard  I  show 

To  fools  who  thus  advise. 
May  I  be  dull  enough  to  grow 

Most  miserably  wise. 

To  CATHERINE  SEDLEY   [married   Sir  David   Colyear] 

Proud  with  the  spoils  of  royal  cully. 
With  false  pretence  to  wit  and  parts, 

She  swaggers  like  a  battered  bully 
To  try  the  tempers  of  mens  hearts. 

Though  she  appear  as  glittering  fine 

As  gems,  and  jets,  and  paints  can  make  her, 

She  ne'er  can  win  a  breast  like  mine  : 
The  Devil  and  Sir  David  take  her. 

The  fugitive  character  of  his  own  verses  does  not, 
however,  in  any  way  detract  from  his  splendour  as  a 
patron.   It  is  well  known  that  Matthew  Prior  as  a  boy 

146 


KNOLE   IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES   II 

was  found  by  him  reading  Horace  in  a  tavern  in  West- 
minster, when,  struck  by  his  intelligence,  Dorset  sent 
the  boy  at  his  own  expense  to  school  until  his  election 
as  King's  Scholar.  Prior  in  after  years  did  not  forget 
this  kindness.  His  poems  are  dedicated  to  the  son  of 
his  earliest  patron,  and  there  are,  as  students  of  Prior 
will  remember,  several  amongst  them  especially  written 
to  members  of  Dorset's  family,  notably  the  "  Lines 
to  Lord  Buckhurst  [Dorset's  son]  when  playing  with  a 
cat."  The  many  letters  from  Prior  to  Lord  Dorset, 
now  in  Lord  Bath's  possession,  testify  to  the  endurance 
of  their  friendship:  one  of  these  letters  ends  with  a 
poem,  which  I  quote,  as  I  am  under  the  impression  that 
it  is  not  included  in  any  edition  of  Prior's  works  : 

Spare  Dorset's  sacred  life^  discerning  Fate^ 

And  Death  shall  march  through  camps  and  courts  in  state^ 

Emptying  his  quiver  on  the  vulgar  great : 

Round  Dorset's  board  let  Peace  and  Plenty  dance^ 

Far  off  let  Famine  her  sad  reign  advance^ 

And  War  walk  deep  in  blood  through  conquered  France. 

Apollo  thus  began  the  mystic  strain^ 

The  Muses'  sons  all  bowed  and  said  Amen. 

It  is  perhaps  less  commonly  known  that  Dryden  also 
owed,  in  another  way,  much  to  Dorset.  The  account  is 
thus  given  by  Macaulay: 

Dorset  became  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  employed  his 
influence  and  patronage  annexed  to  his  functions,  as  he  had 
long  employed  his  private  means,  in  encouraging  genius  and 
alleviating  misfortune.  One  of  the  first  acts  which  he  was 
under  the  necessity  of  performing  must  have  been  painful  to 
a  man  of  so  generous  a  nature,  and  of  so  keen  a  relish  for 
whatever  was  excellent  in  arts  and  letters.  Dryden  could  no 
longer  remain  Poet  Laureate.  The  public  would  not  have 
borne  to  see  any  papist  among  the  servants  of  their  Majesties ; 
and  Dryden  was  not  only  a  papist,  but  an  apostate.    He 

H7 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

had,  moreover,  aggravated  the  guilt  of  his  apostacy  by 
calumniating  and  ridiculing  the  Church  which  he  had  de- 
serted. He  had,  it  was  facetiously  said,  treated  her  as  the  pagan 
persecutors  of  old  treated  her  children.  He  had  dressed  her 
up  in  the  skin  of  a  wild  beast,  and  then  baited  her  for  the 
public  amusement.  He  was  removed  ;  but  he  received 
from  the  private  bounty  of  the  magnificent  Chamberlain  a 
pension  equal  to  the  salary  which  had  been  withdrawn. 

Dryden,  apparently,  despite  this  generosity,  continued 
to  lament  his  ill-fortune,  and  his  contemporary  Black- 
more,  in  a  poem  called  Prince  Arthur,  satirises  him  in 
the  character  of  Lauras  for  his  assiduity  at  Dorset's 
doors — Dorset  being  the  Sakil  of  the  poem,  Sackville 
in  transparent  disguise: 

The  poets'  nation  did  obsequious  wait 

For  the  kind  dole  divided  at  his  gate. 

Laurus  among  the  meagre  crowd  appeared, 

An  old,  revolted,  unbelieving  bard. 

Who  thronged,  and  shoved,  and  pressed,  and  would  be  heard. 

Sakil' s  high  roof,  the  Muses'  palace,  rung 
With  endless  cries,  and  endless  songs  he  sung. 
To  bless  good  Sakil  Laurus  would  be  first ; 
But  Sakil' s  prince  and  Sakil' s  God  he  cursed. 
Sakil  without  distinction  threw  his  bread. 
Despised  the  flatterer,  but  the  poet  fed. 

It  is  true  that  in  his  Essay  on  Satire,  which,  like  his 
Essay  on  Dramatic  Poetry,  is  dedicated  in  terms  of  the 
most  outrageous  flattery  to  Dorset,  Dryden  makes  full 
acknowledgement  of  the  obligation: 

I  must  ever  acknowledge,  to  the  honour  of  your  Lordship 
and  the  eternal  memory  of  your  charity,  that,  since  this 
revolution,  wherein  I  have  patiently  suffered  the  ruin  of  my 
small  fortune,  and  the  loss  of  that  poor  subsistence  which 
I  had  from  two  kings,  whom  I  had  served  more  faithfully 
than  profitably  to  myself;  then  your  Lordship  was  pleased,  out 
of  no  other  motive  but  your  own  nobleness,  without  any  desert 

148 


KNOLE  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLES  II 

of  mine,  or  the  least  solicitation  from  me,  to  make  me  a  most 
bountiful  present,  which  at  that  time,  when  I  was  most  in  want 
of  it,  came  most  seasonably  and  unexpectedly  to  my  relief. 

But  I  think  there  may  be  detected,  even  in  this 
acknowledgment,  the  note  of  whining  to  which 
Macaulay,  in  the  continuation  of  the  passage  I  have 
quoted,  draws  attention.  It  is  also  related  that  Dryden, 
when  dining  with  Dorset,  found  a  hundred-pound  note 
hidden  under  his  plate.  In  a  letter  preserved  at  Knole, 
in  Dryden's  beautiful  handwriting,  he  makes  further 
acknowledgement,  after  proffering  a  petition  on  behalf  of 
a  friend  who  wished  to  obtain  rooms  in  Somerset  House : 

...  if  I  had  confidence  enough,  my  Lord,  I  would  presume  to 
mind  you  of  a  favour  which  your  Lordship  formerly  gave 
me  some  hopes  of  from  the  Queen  ;  but  if  it  be  not  proper 
or  convenient  for  you  to  ask,  I  dare  give  your  Lordship  no 
further  trouble  in  it,  being  on  so  many  other  accounts  already 
your  Lordship's  most  obliged  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  DRYDEN. 

We  know  that  Dryden  was  a  constant  visitor  at 
Knole ;  we  have  even  an  anecdote  of  one  of  his  visits. 
It  is  related  that  someone  proposed  that  each  member 
of  the  party  should  write  an  impromptu,  and  that 
Dryden,  when  the  allotted  time  had  expired,  should 
judge  between  them.  Silence  ensued  while  each  guest 
wrote  busily,  or  laboriously,  upon  the  sheet  of  paper 
provided :  Dorset  scribbled  a  couple  of  lines  and  threw 
it  down  on  the  table.  At  the  end  of  the  time  the  umpire 
rose,  and  said  that  after  careful  consideration  he 
awarded  the  prize  to  their  host;  he  would  read  out 
what  his  Lordship  had  written ;  it  was :  "  I  promise 
to  pay  Mr.  John  Dryden  or  order  five  hundred  pounds 
on  demand.     DORSET." 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  who  were  the  other 
members  of  the  party ;  perhaps  Tom  Durfey,  perhaps 

149 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Lady  Dorset,  who  is  described  as  "  jeune,  belle,  riche, 
et  sage,"  perhaps  Rochester,  whose  portrait  hangs  in 
the  Poets'  Parlour — and  I  imagine  the  Poets'  Parlour 
to  have  been  the  scene  of  this  little  incident,  "  a  chamber 
of  parts  and  players,"  says  Horace  Walpole,  "  which  is 
proper  enough  in  that  house  " — a  portrait  of  a  young 
man  in  a  heavy  wig,  labelled  *'  died  repentant  after  a 
profligate  life,"  as  I,  not  understanding  the  long  words, 
used  to  gabble  off  to  strangers  along  with  other  piteous 
little  shibboleths  when  showing  the  house.  Certainly 
Shadwell  was  not  there,  for  he  and  Dryden  were  at 
mortal  enmity;  Shadwell,  his  successor  in  the  Laureate- 
ship,  another  friend  and  protege  of  Dorset's,  described 
by  Dryden  as  being 

Round  as  a  globe,  and  liquored  every  chink. 
Goodly  and  great,  he  sails  behind  his  link. 
For  all  this  bulk  there's  nothing  lost  in  Og, 
For  every  inch  that  is  otn  fool  is  rogue, 

and  who  writes  of  Dorset  that  he  was  received  by  him 
as  a  member  of  his  family,  and  furthermore,  rather 
plaintively,  in  a  letter  at  Knole,  beseeching  Lord 
Dorset's  intervention,  as  "  they  have  put  Durfey's  play 
before  ours,  and  this  day  a  play  of  Dryden's  is  read  to 
them  and  that  is  to  be  acted  before  ours  too." 

Tom  Durfey,  whose  portrait  is  upstairs  in  Lady 
Betty's  room,  painted  in  profile,  with  surely  the  most 
formidable  of  all  hooked  noses,  was  almost  a  pensioner  at 
Knole,  having  his  own  rooms  over  the  dairy,  and  is  guilty 
of  these  execrable  verses  in  praise  of  his  second  home: 

THE    GLORY    OF    KNOLE 

Knole  most  famous  in  Kent  still  appears, 
JVhere  mansions  surveyed  for  a  thousand  long  years, 
In  whose  domes  mighty  monarchs  might  dwell. 
Where  five  hundred  rooms  are,  as  Boswell^  can  tell ! 

^The  butler,  not  the  biographer. 
150 


KNOLE   IN  THE   REIGN  OF   CHARLES   II 

I  do  not  think  that  Durfey  can  have  been  very  greatly 
esteemed  by  his  patron,  nor  yet  on  very  intimate  terms 
with  him,  but  kept  rather,  contemptuously,  as  per- 
manent rhymester  to  Dorset's  little  court,  for  another 
picture,  small,  obscure,  but  entertainingly  intimate, 
shows  him  in  humble  company  in  the  Steward's  Room 
with  Lowry,  the  Steward;  George  Allan,  a  clothier; 
Mother  Moss,  whoever  she  may  have  been;  Maxi- 
milian Buck,  the  chaplain;  and  one  Jack  Randall. 
His  name  is  certainly  not  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
among  the  many  poets  and  writers  represented  on  the 
walls  of  the  Poets'  Parlour — Edmund  Waller,  Matthew 
Prior,  Thomas  Flattman,  John  Dryden,  William  Con- 
greve,  William  Wycherley,  Thomas  Otway,  Thomas 
Hobbes,  John  Locke,  Samuel  Butler,  Abraham  Cow- 
ley, Nicholas  Rowe,  William  Cartwright,  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby,  Alexander  Pope.  And  with  this  last  name 
I  come  to  the  final  tribute  paid  to  the  splendid  Dorset 
— Pope's  epitaph  upon  his  monument  in  the  Sackville 
chapel  at  Withyham: 

Dorset,  the  grace   of  courts,  the  Muses'  pride. 

Patron  of  arts,  and  judge  of  nature,  died. 

The  scourge  of  pride,  though  sanctified  or  great. 

Of  fops  in  learning,  and  of  knaves  in  state  : 

Tet  soft  his  nature,  though  severe  his  lay. 

His  anger  moral,  and  his  wisdom  gay. 

Blest  satirist  !   who  touched  the  mean  so  true. 

As  showed  vice  had  his  hate  and  pity  too. 

Blest  courtier  I   who  could  King  and  country  please, 

Tet  sacred  kept  his  friendships  and  his  ease. 

Blest  peer  !  his  great  forefather  s  every  grace 

Reflected  and  reflecting  in  his  race. 

Where  other  Buckhursts,  other  Dorsets  shine. 

And  patriots  still,  or  poets,  deck  the  line. 


151 


/ 


CHAPTER  VII 

Knole  in  the  Early  Eighteenth  Century 

LIONEL  SACKVILLE 

7th  Earl  and  1st 
Duke  of  Dorset 

THE  first  duke  of  Dorset  remains  to  me,  in  spite 
of  much  reading,  but  an  indistinct  figure.  I  do 
not  know  whether  the  fault  is  mine  or  his. 
Perhaps  he  was  a  man  of  little  personality ;  certainly 
he  was  lacking  in  the  charm  of  his  scapegrace  father  or 
of  his  frivolous  great-nephew,  the  third  duke.  And  yet 
he  is  a  personage  of  some  solidity:  weighty,  Georgian 
solidity.  The  epithets  chosen  by  his  contemporaries  to 
describe  him  are  all  concordant  enough,  "  a  man  of 
dignity,  caution,  and  plausibility,"  "  worthy,  honest, 
good-natured,"  "  he  preserved  to  the  last  the  good 
breeding,  decency  of  manner,  and  dignity  of  exterior 
deportment  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  never  departing 
from  his  style  of  gravity  and  ceremony,"  "  a  large- 
grown,  full  person,"  and  finally — the  words  come  al- 
most with  the  shock  of  being  precisely  what  we  were 
waiting  for — "  in  spite  of  the  greatest  dignity  in  his 
appearance,  he  was  in  private  the  greatest  lover  of  low 
humour  and  buffoonery."  He  was  fitted,  if  I  piece 
together  rightly  my  scraps  of  evidence,  to  lead  the  life 
of  a  country  gentleman,  performing  his  duty  towards 
his  county,  entertaining  his  friends,  enjoying  with  them 
after  dinner  the  low  humour  to  which  he  inclined, 
rolling  out  his  laughter  in  the  Poets'  Parlour,  slapping 
his  great  thighs,  and  rejoining  his  wife  afterwards  in 

152 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

the  spirit  of  affectionate  domesticity  which  induced 
him  to  begin  his  letters  to  her  **  dear,  dear,  dear  girl," 
or  "  my  dear,  dear  Colly."  He  lived,  says  one  account 
of  him,  after  detailing  his  amiable  qualities  as  a  kind 
husband  and  father,  "  in  great  hospitality  all  his  life, 
and  he  was  so  respected  that  when  at  Knole  on 
Sundays  the  front  of  the  house  was  so  crowded  with 
horsemen  and  carriages  as  to  give  it  rather  the  appear- 
ance of  a  princely  levee  than  the  residence  of  a  private 
nobleman."  It  was  his  misfortune  that  he  was  not 
allowed  to  remain  leading  this  kind  of  life  so  much  to 
his  taste:  **  the  poor  Duke  of  Dorset,"  said  Lord 
Shelburne,  *'  was  made  by  his  son  to  commence 
politician  at  sixty."  The  local  offices  which  he  held 
were  well  suited  to  his  disposition  and  abilities;  the 
titles  of  Gustos  Rotuiorum,  Lord  Lieutenant  oj  Kent^ 
Constable  oj  Dover  Castle^  and  Lord  Warden  oj  the 
Cinque  Ports  sit  admirably  upon  his  rather  provincial 
dignity.  He  could  discharge  these  offices  while  sur- 
rounding himself  with  friends,  and  keeping  open  house 
at  Knole.  He  was  surely  happy  at  Knole,  with  the 
duchess  and  the  duchess'  friend  Lady  Betty  Germaine 
installed  in  her  two  little  rooms  in  a  corner  of  the  house, 
and  the  correspondence  with  Dean  Swift,  and  the 
echoes  of  the  Restoration  reaching  him  in  the  shape  of 
dedications  from  Prior  and  Pope,  who  had  been  his 
father's  friends.  He  must  have  been  happy  super- 
intending the  building  of  the  "  ruins  "  in  the  park,  in 
ordering  the  removal  of  the  clock  from  the  roof  of  the 
Great  Hall  to  a  safer  place  over  Bourchier's  oriel,  in 
putting  up  the  balustrade  in  the  Stone  Court,  in  adding 
to  the  picture-gallery  his  own  full-length  Kneller, 
painted  in  Garter  robes — a  dignified  and  ponderous 
addition — in  continuing  his  father's  kindly  and  con- 

153 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

temptuous  patronage  of  Durfey,  in  entertaining  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  in  receiving  the  present  of  a  pair  of 
elk-antlers  measuring  7  foot  from  tip  to  tip,  in  playing 
at  cards  with  his  wife  and  Lady  Betty,  in  watching  the 
bull-baiting  in  the  park,  in  inspiring  the  following 
tribute  on  the  occasion  of  his  birthday: 

Accept^  with  unambitious  views^ 
The  tribute  of  a  female  muse  ; 
Free  from  all  flattery  and  art^ 
She  only  boasts  an  honest  heart ; 
An  heart  that  truly  feels  your  worthy 
And  hails  the  day  that  gave  you  birth  ; 
Of  younger  men  let  others  boast. 
Since  Dorset  is  my  constant  toast ; 
Nor  need  the  gayer  world  be  told 
That  Dorset  never  can  grozv  old ; 

And  with  unerring  truth  agree, 
There's  none  so  young,  so  blithe  as  he, 
With  sprightly  wit  his  jokes  abound, 
Well-bred,  he  deals  good-humour  round ; 
The  maid  forgets  her  favWite  swain. 
When  Dorset  speaks,  he  fights  in  vain  ; 
The  lover  too,  do  all  he  can. 
Strives,  but  in  vain,  to  hate  the  man. 
With  this  kind  wish  I  end  my  lays. 
Be  ever  young  with  length  of  days. 

or  such  appreciation  of  his  Christmas  hospitality  as  this: 

Our  liquor  at  all  times  to  nature  gives  fire. 
Infuses  new  blood,  and  new  thoughts  can  inspire. 
Your  wife,  she  may  scold,  undaunted  you  II  sing. 
For  he  that  is  drunk  is  as  great  as  a  King. 

In  the  field,  if  all  night  you  lie  under  a  willow. 
The  soft  easy  snow  shall  be  your  down  pillow. 
There's  nothing  can  hurt  you  without  or  within 
When  you've  beef  in  your  belly  and  Punch  in  your  skin. 

154 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

It  is  true  that  certain  discordant  notes  troubled  from 
time  to  time  this  Georgian  harmony.  The  house- 
steward  killed  the  black  page  in  the  passage;  and  the 
duke's  sons  themselves  were  unsatisfactory;  even  the 
favourite  son,  Lord  George,  who  was  the  apple  of  his 
father's  eye,  fell  into  disgrace  and  was  court-martialled 
on  a  charge  of  disobedience  and  cowardice.  "  I  always 
told  you,"  said  Lord  John  on  hearing  of  this,  "  that 
George  was  no  better  than  myself."  This  affair  of  the 
battle  of  Minden  must  have  been  a  heavy  blow  to  the 
duke,  but  although  Lord  George  was  not  exonerated 
he  retained  all  his  father's  doting  affection.  Still,  the 
mud  had  been  slung  at  him  and  not  a  little  had  stuck. 
The  two  other  sons  were  a  source  of  sorrow:  Lord 
John,  after  devoting  his  youth  to  cricket,  went  off  his 
head;  and  Lord  Middlesex,  the  eldest  of  the  three, 
was  an  altogether  deplorable  character,  prompting 
these  verses,  based  upon  an  old  saying  about  the 
family : 

Folly  and  sense  in  Dorset's  race 
Alternately  do  run^ 

As  Carey  one  day  told  his  Grace 
Praising  his  eldest  son. 

But  Carey  must  allow  for  once 

Exception  to  this  rule. 
For  Middlesex  is  but  a  dunce ^ 

Though  Dorset  be  a  fool. 

I  quote  the  verses  as  they  stand,  though  "  dunce  " 
seems  scarcely  the  right  description  to  apply  to  Lord 
Middlesex,  that  dissolute  and  extravagant  man  of 
fashion,  who  squandered  large  sums  of  money  upon 
producing  operas,  that  *'  proud,  disgusted,  melancholy, 
solitary  man,"  whose  conduct  savoured  so  strongly  of 
madness.    Certain  family  characteristics  appeared  in 

^5S 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

him  which  had  skipped  his  father,  and  his  father  and 
he,  consequently  and  not  unnaturally,  were  not  on 
very  good  terms.  The  duke,  indeed,  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  his  eldest  son  and  heir.  "  Upon  my 
word,  Mr.  Cary,"  he  said,  when  Mr.  Cary  asked  him 
loudly  at  the  play  whether  Lord  Middlesex  was  to 
undertake  the  opera  again  next  season,  *'  I  have  not 
considered  what  answer  to  make  to  such  a  question." 
Both  Lord  Middlesex  and  Lord  John  being  so  un- 
satisfactory. Lord  George  was,  and  remained,  his 
father's  favourite.  Lord  George,  in  an  even  greater 
degree  than  his  father,  is  an  incongruity  among  the 
Sackvilles,  a  departure  from  type.  In  spite  of  all  his 
mistakes,  his  misjudgments,  and  his  misfortunes,  he 
was  a  man  of  greater  ability  than  most  of  them,  of 
greater  energy  than  the  common  run  of  his  indolent 
and  pleasure-loving  race,  of  a  further-reaching 
ambition.  He  did  not  begin  life  as  the  eldest  son, 
coming  in  due  course  to  be  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  languidly  accepting  the  civil  or  diplomatic  posts 
which  were  pressed  upon  him ;  such  career  as  he  had 
he  made  for  himself.  Unlike  his  predecessors  or  their 
descendants,  he  was  neither  an  ambassador,  a  poet, 
nor  a  patron  of  art  or  letters — "  I  have  not,"  he  wrote, 
*'  genius  sufficient  for  works  of  mere  imagination  " — but 
first  a  soldier  and  then  a  statesman,  both  disastrously. 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  go  into  the  details  of  his  public 
career;  my  ignorance  is  too  great  of  the  tangle  of 
Georgian  politics ;  nor  am  I  qualified  to  discuss  whether 
he  did  or  did  not  disobey  his  orders  at  Minden, 
whether  he  was  or  was  not  largely  responsible  for  the 
loss  of  America,  whether  he  did  or  did  not  write  the 
Letters  oj  yunius  ;  such  questions  are  treated  in 
histories  of  the  period.     Nor  can   I   deal  with  the 

156 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

enormous  number  of  letters  on  political  subjects  written 
both  by  and  to  Lord  George:  I  have  looked  into  them 
more  than  once,  and  have  come  away  merely  bewildered 
by  the  cross-threads  of  home  politics,  by  the  names  of 
remembered  or  forgotten  statesmen,  by  the  fall  and 
reconstruction  of  Ministries,  by  the  crises  of  Whigs 
and  Tories.  So  I  judge  it  best  to  leave  Lord  George 
alone,  "  hot,  haughty,  ambitious,  and  obstinate,  a  sort 
of  melancholy  in  his  look  which  runs  through  all  the 
Sackville  family,"  and  to  seek  neither  to  blacken  nor  to 
whitewash  his  character.  I  scarcely  regard  him  as  one 
of  the  Sackvilles,  perhaps  because  he  broke  away  from 
the  family  traditions  into  unfamiliar  paths,  perhaps 
also  because  he  earned  his  own  peerage,  inherited  a 
large  house  of  his  own,  and  led  an  existence  separate 
from  Knole.  Living  at  Knole  among  its  portraits  and 
its  legends  which  grew  into  the  very  texture  of  one's 
life,  it  was,  I  suppose,  inevitable  that  one  should  grow 
up  with  pre-conceived  affections  or  indifferences,  and 
for  some  reason  Lord  George  never  awakened  my 
interest  or  my  sense  of  relationship.  He  was  a  public 
character,  not  a  relation. 

The  early  impressions  of  the  first  duke,  who  grew 
to  be  so  pompous,  stout,  and  good-natured,  and  whose 
three  sons  gave  him  in  their  several  ways  so  much 
anxiety,  are  not  unattractive.  There  is  a  picture  of  him 
as  a  little  sUm  boy,  with  his  sister  and  their  pet  fawn; 
and  there  is  Lord  George's  own  anecdote  of  his  father's 
childhood : 

My  father,  having  lost  his  own  mother,  was  brought  up 
chiefly   by  the  Dowager    Countess   of  Northampton,    his 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

grandmother.  She  being  particularly  acceptable  to  Queen 
Mary,  that  Princess  commanded  her  always  to  bring  her 
little  grandson.  Lord  Buckhurst,  to  Kensington  Palace, 
though  at  that  time  hardly  four  years  of  age,  and  he  was 
allowed  to  amuse  himself  with  a  child's  cart  in  the  gallery. 
King  William,  like  almost  all  Dutchmen,  never  failed  to 
attend  the  tea-table  every  evening.  It  happened  that  her 
Majesty  having  one  afternoon  by  his  desire  made  tea,  and 
waiting  for  the  King's  arrival,  who  was  engaged  on  business 
in  his  cabinet  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  gallery,  the  boy, 
hearing  the  Queen  express  her  impatience  at  the  delay,  ran 
away  to  the  closet,  dragging  after  him  the  cart.  When  he 
arrived  at  the  door,  he  knocked,  and  the  King  asking  "  Who 
is  there  ?  "  "  Lord  Buck,"  answered  he.  "  And  what  does 
Lord  Buck  want  with  me  ?  "  replied  his  Majesty.  "  You 
must  come  to  tea  directly,"  said  he,  "  the  Queen  is  waiting 
for  you."  King  William  immediately  laid  down  his  pen  and 
opened  the  door.  Then  taking  the  child  in  his  arms,  he 
placed  Lord  Buckhurst  in  the  cart,  and  seizing  the  pole 
drew  them  both  along  the  gallery  to  the  room  in  which  were 
seated  the  Queen,  Lady  Northampton,  and  the  company. 
But  no  sooner  had  he  entered  the  apartment,  than,  exhausted 
with  the  effort,  which  had  forced  the  blood  upon  his  lungs, 
and  being  constitutionally  asthmatic,  he  threw  himself  into 
a  chair,  and  for  some  minutes  was  incapable  of  uttering  a 
word,  breathing  with  the  utmost  difficulty.  The  Countess  of 
Northampton,  shocked  at  the  consequences  of  her  grand- 
son's indiscretion,  would  have  punished  him,  but  the  King 
intervened  on  his  behalf. 

When  a  young  man  he  went  on  the  inevitable 
Grand  Tour.  This  journey,  it  is  fair  to  assume,  which 
was  taken  at  the  instigation  of  his  mother's  relations, 
was  designed  to  keep  him  away  from  the  influence  of 
his  enfeebled  father  and  of  his  step-mother,  Ann 
Roche,  quite  as  much  as  for  the  benefit  of  his  edu- 
cation. His  father  was  very  angry  at  this  withdrawal 
of  his  son  from  his  authority,  and  wrote  to  him: 

158 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

i  hear  my  Lady  Northampton  has  ordered  you  not  to  obey 
me  ;  if  you  take  any  notice  of  what  she  says  i  have  enough 
in  my  power  to  make  you  suffer  for  it  beyond  what  she  will 
make  you  amends  for.  But  i  cannot  imagine  you  to  be  such  a 
fool  as  to  be  governed  by  the  passion  and  folly  of  anybody. 

Your  affectionate  father, 

DORSET. 

i  expect  you  will  come  away  by  the  next  yocht. 

The  next  yacht,  however,  came  away  without  Lord 
Buckhurst,  and  the  young  man  did  not  return  to 
England  until  after  his  father's  death.  Shortly  after  his 
succession  and  return  he  married  Elizabeth  Colyear,  his 
"  dear,  dear  Colly,"  and  was  appointed  Lord  Warden 
of  the  Cinque  Ports  at  a  salary  of  _^i6o  a  year,  and 
Lieutenant  of  Dover  Castle  at  ^50.  This  is  the  menu 
and  cost  of  the  dinner  given  by  the  youthful  Lord 
Warden  at  Dover  Castle  on  the  i6th  August  1709  on 
his  being  appointed  by  Queen  Anne:  .  . 

5  Soups  300 
1 2  dishes  of  fish                                                   10   16     o 

I  Westphalia  Ham  and  five  fowls  160 

8  dishes  of  pullets  and  oysters,  with  bacon  416     o 

10  Almond  Puddings  300 

12  haunches  of  venison,  roast  116     o 

6  dishes  of  roast  pigs  220 
3  dishes  of  roast  geese  140 

12  Venison  pasties  600 

12  white  Fragacies  with  Peetets  740 

8  dishes  of  "  ragged  "  veal  4   16     o 

Second  Course 

14  dishes  of  ducks,  turkeys,  and  pigeons  800 

15  codlin  tarts,  creamed  410  o 
12  dishes  of  roast  lobster  4  16  o 
12  dishes  of  umble  pies  440 
10  dishes  of  fried  fish  500 

8  dishes  of  Chickens  and  rabbits  400 

159 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Ryders  £     s.   d. 

5  dishes  of  dried  sweetmeats  1 7    i  o     o 

12  dishes  of  jelly  4    16     o 

6  dishes  of  Selebub  cream  280 

1 3  dishes  of  fruit  10     o     o 
8  dishes  of  Almond  Pies  gilt  416     o 

12  dishes  of  Custard  Florentines  3    12      o 

8  dishes  of  lobster  340 

120  Intermediate  plates  of  sorts  900 

Side-Table 

A  large  chine  ofbeefstuck  with  flags  and  banners     5   10     o 
I  loaf  of  double  refined  sugar  046 

Oil  and  vinegar  030 

Outcharges  and  expenses  of  pewter,  carriage, 
bread,  wharfage,  turnspits,  glasses,  mugs, 
for  ten  men,  horses,  use  of  bakehouse, 
cooks,  coach  hire  76    16     9 

This  was  an  office  he  held  intermittently  for  many 
years,  and  on  one  occasion,  England  being  then  at  war 
with  Spain,  two  hundred  and  fifty  butts,  eight  hogs- 
heads, and  fifty  quarter  casks  of  Spanish  mountain  wine, 
and  one  hundred  jars  of  Raisins  of  the  Sun,  being 
washed  up  at  Deal  and  Sandwich,  they  were  adjudged 
to  him  as  the  Lord  Warden's  perquisite  of  flotsam  and 
jetsam. 

In  1 714  died  Queen  Anne,  and  Lord  Dorset,  with 
others,  was  sent  to  Hanover  to  announce  to  George  his 
accession  to  the  English  throne.  He  returned  from 
Hanover  with  the  new  King,  and  drove  with  him  in  his 
coach  from  Greenwich  to  London.  On  the  way 
George  related  that  thirty-three  years  earlier  he  had 
travelled  to  England  as  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Queen 
Anne:  returning  to  Gravesend  after  the  failure  of  his 
mission,  he  rode  a  common  post-horse,  which  gave  him 
a  fall,  so  that  he  arrived  at  Gravesend  covered  with 

160 


KNOLE   IN  THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

mud.  The  King  amused  himself  in  the  coach  with 
looking  out  for  the  place  where  this  misfortune  had 
come  upon  him,  and  pointed  it  out  to  Lord  Dorset, 
who  no  doubt  joined  politely  in  the  laughter. 

Thus  began  that  curious  reign  of  a  King  who  did  not 
know  the  language  of  his  adopted  country,  who  spent 
as  much  time  in  his  Hanoverian  as  in  his  English 
estates,  and  infinitely  preferred  them,  who  surrounded 
himself  with  German  courtiers  and  mistresses,  and  who 
locked  up  his  wife  for  two-and-thirty  years  as  a  punish- 
ment for  her  infidelity.  The  solemnity  of  Lord  Dorset 
cannot  have  been  out  of  place  in  such  a  court.  Honours 
now  crowded  rapidly  upon  him,  although  at  one 
moment  he  was  temporarily  deprived  of  all  his  offices 
for  taking  part  in  political  intrigues.  He  was  made  a 
Knight  of  the  Garter,  six  years  later  he  was  made  a 
duke,  he  was  given  the  office  of  Lord  Steward,  and 
finally  he  entered  upon  the  first  lap  of  his  unfortunate 
career  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  Before  this, 
however,  he  was  for  the  second  time  called  upon  to  be 
the  bearer  of  news  of  accession  to  a  King  of  England. 
I  give  the  account  in  Lord  George's  words: 

When  the  intelligence  of  his  [George  I's]  decease,  which 
took  place  near  Osnabrugh,  in  the  end  of  July  1727,  arrived 
in  London,  the  Cabinet  having  immediately  met,  thought 
proper  to  dispatch  the  Duke  of  Dorset  with  the  news  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  He  then  resided  at  Kew,  in  a  state  of  great 
alienation  from  the  King,  the  two  Courts  maintaining  no 
communication.  Some  litde  time  being  indispensable  to 
enable  my  father  to  appear  in  a  suitable  manner  before  the 
new  monarch,  he  sent  forward  the  Duchess  his  wife,  in  order 
to  announce  the  event.  She  arrived  at  Kew  just  as  the  Prince, 
according  to  his  invariable  custom,  having  undressed  him- 
self after  dinner,  had  laid  down  in  bed.  The  Duchess  demand- 
ing permission  to  see  him  immediately,  on  business  of  the 

161  L 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

greatest  importance,  the  servants  acquainted  the  Princess  of 
Wales  with  her  arrival ;  and  the  Duchess,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  informed  her  Royal  Highness,  that  George  the 
First  lay  dead  at  Osnabrugh,  that  the  Cabinet  had  ordered 
her  husband  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  intelligence  to  his 
successor,  and  that  the  Duke  would  follow  her  in  a  short 
time.  She  added  that  not  a  moment  should  be  lost  in  com- 
municating so  great  an  event  to  the  Prince,  as  the  Ministers 
wished  him  to  come  up  to  London  that  same  evening,  in 
order  to  summon  a  Privy  Council,  to  issue  a  proclamation, 
and  take  other  requisite  measures,  at  the  commencement  of 
a  new  reign. 

To  the  propriety  of  all  these  steps  the  Princess  assented  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  informed  the  Duchess,  that  she  could 
not  venture  to  enter  her  husband's  room,  as  he  had  only  just 
taken  off  his  clothes  and  composed  himself  to  sleep.  "  Be- 
sides," added  she,  "  the  Prince  will  not  give  credit  to  the 
intelligence,  but  will  exclaim  that  it  is  a  fabrication,  designed 
for  the  purpose  of  exposing  him."  The  Duchess  continued 
nevertheless  to  remonstrate  with  her  Royal  Highness,  on  the 
injurious  consequences  of  losing  time,  and  adding  that  the 
Duke  of  Dorset  would  expect  to  find  the  Prince  not  only 
apprised  of  it,  but  ready  to  accompany  him  to  London.  The 
Princess  of  Wales  took  off  her  shoes,  opened  the  chamber 
door  softly,  and  advanced  up  to  the  bedside,  while  my 
mother  remained  at  the  threshold,  till  she  should  be  allowed 
to  enter  the  apartment.  As  soon  as  the  Princess  came  near 
the  bed,  a  voice  from  under  the  clothes  cried  out  in  German, 
Was  ist  das  ?  "I  am  come,  sir,"  answered  she,  "  to 
announce  to  you  the  death  of  the  King,  which  has  taken 
place  in  Germany."  "  That  is  one  damned  trick,"  returned 
the  Prince,  "  I  do  not  believe  one  word  of  it."  "  Sir,"  said 
the  Princess,  "  it  is  most  certain.  The  Duchess  of  Dorset 
has  just  brought  the  intelligence,  and  the  Duke  will  be  here 
immediately.  The  Ministers  hope  that  you  will  repair  to  town 
this  very  evening,  as  your  presence  there  is  indispensable." 
Her  Royal  Highness  then  threw  herself  on  her  knees,  to 
kiss  the  new  King's  hand ;  and  beckoning  to  the  Duchess  of 
Dorset  to  advance,  she  came  in  likewise,  knelt  down,  and 
assured  him  of  the  indisputable  truth  of  his  father's  decease. 

162 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

Convinced  at  length  of  the  fact,  he  consented  to  get  up  and 
dress  himself.  The  Duke  of  Dorset  arriving  in  his  coach  and 
six,  almost  immediately  afterwards,  George  the  Second 
quitted  Kew  the  same  evening  for  London. 

George  the  Second,  as  Prince  of  Wales,  had  been  on 
terms  of  personal  friendship  with  the  duke.  He  had 
stayed  at  Knole,  when  half  an  ox,  four  sheep,  and  a 
calf  were  provided,  besides  the  following  items  for  his 
visit : 

Butcher 

Bread  and  flour 

Fowls,  butter  and  eggs 

Poulterer 

Fishmonger 

Confectioner 

Wine 

Beer 

Master-cook's  bill 

To  the  cooks 

The  pewterer 

The  carrier 

Lord  Lumley's  Grenadiers 

The  duke's  first  essay  in  Ireland  was  not  unsuccess- 
ful :  he  left  affairs  alone  as  far  as  he  possibly  could 
and  was  tolerably  popular.  It  was  only  the  second 
time,  twenty  years  later,  that  he  and  Lord  George 
incurred  so  much  dislike.  Into  the  political  reasons 
for  this  I  have  already  said  that  I  will  not,  because 
I  cannot,  enter  ;  I  will  only  quote  from  a  curious 
lampoon,  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  which 
was   written    to    celebrate   the  duke's   departure    in 

1754: 

163 


jC 

s. 

^. 

17 

0 

0 

4 

0 

0 

14 

15 

0 

II 

14 

0 

9 

4 

0 

25 

10 

0 

66 

0 

0 

35 

0 

0 

20 

9 

0 

37 

12 

6 

3 

12 

4 

9 

0 

0 

3 

4 

6 

KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Hingmg  of  tfte  T5eU 

or 
A  Hue   &   Cry  after  Raymond  the   Fox 

By  ROGER  SPY,  Esq. 

The  bells  are  ringing,  Hark  !  how  they  merrily  toll. 
What  is  the  cause  of  their  joy  ?  Or  why  this  cheerful 
tintinnation  ?  They  seem  animated,  and  their  rejoicing 
seems  sensible,  so  expressive  of  triumph  and  hilarity  are 
their  peals,  treble,  bass  and  tenor  make  excellent  harmony, 
and  strike  the  very  heart ;  the  ringers  themselves  pull  with 
pleasure — what  is  it  they  toll  forth,  or  what  may  the  bells 
be  supposed  to  say  } 

Interpreter 
ril  tell  you  what  they  say  .  .  . 

St.  Patrick's 

He  was  full  of  Pa-pa  tricks. 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Patrick's. 

St.  Mary 

I  wonder  how  dare  he. 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Mary. 

St.  Bride 

Our  acts  he  belied. 

Says  the  bell  of  St.  Bride. 

St.  Ann 

He  played  Cat-in-Pan, 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Ann. 

St.  Andrew 

Bad  swash  as  e'er  man  drew, 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Andrew. 

St.  Peter 

No  vinegar  sweeter, 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Peter. 
164 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

Si.  Owen 
In  mischief  full  knowing, 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Owen. 

Sf.  Thomas 
The  Lord  keep  him  from  us, 
Says  the  bell  of  St.  Thomas. 

St.  Nicholas  Without 
He  put  good  men  out. 
Says  St.  Nicholas  Without. 

St.  Nicholas  Within 
He  put  bad  men  in. 
Says  St.  Nicholas  Within. 

Castle  Bell 
You're  a  very  bad  parcel, 
Says  the  bell  of  the  Castle, 

and  so  on,  in  the  same  vein. 

His  patronage  of  the  actress  Peg  Woffington  sets 
him  in  a  more  personal  and  amiable  light.  I  have  no 
evidence  to  prove  whether  he  was  following  in  the  steps 
of  his  father;  I  only  know  that  Peg  Woffington's 
portrait,  like  that  of  Nell  Gwyn  and  of  the  Baccelli, 
is  at  Knole;  that  an  old  play-bill  of  hers  was  found 
behind  the  panelling  in  the  Great  Hall;  that  the  duke 
gave  her  a  command  performance  at  Dublin;  and, 
finally,  that  the  following  facetious  petition — was  it 
written  by  one  of  the  duke's  disrespectful  sons  i* — is 
among  the  Knole  papers: 

To  his  Grace  l  i  o  n  e  l  Duke  of  Dorset,  Lord  Lieu'    of 

Ireland 

The  humble  Memorial  of  Margaret  Woffington, 
Spinster.    Most  humbly  sheweth 

That  your  Memorialist  is  a  woman  of  great  merit  and 

165 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

small  fortune,  and  would  be  proud  of  an  opportunity  of 
shewing  her  zeal  for  his  Majesty's  service  by  her  ready 
acceptance  and  faithful  discharge  of  any  employment  he 
shall  graciously  please  to  bestow  upon  her. 

That  her  friends  have  been  at  great  expense  and  trouble 
in  procuring  and  perusing  the  list  of  the  several  places  on 
this  establishment,  and  find  her  extremely  well  qualified  to 
discharge  the  Office  of  Housekeeper  to  his  Majesty's  Castle 
as  it  doth  not  require  much  greater  ability  than  the  Rolls  or 
the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer. 

That  your  Memorialist  is  a  true  friend  to  the  present 
Constitution  in  opposition  to  all  Mock  Patriots  and  drinks 
the  Brownlow  Majority  and  the  Minority  for  the  Money- 
bill  every  day  devoutly. 

That  she  has  already  by  the  assistance  of  whisky  made 
two  considerable  Proselytes  Patrick  O'Donoghoe  and  Thady 
Foley  her  Chairman  tho*  one  of  them  had  been  closeted  by 
Col.  Dilkes  and  the  other  taken  by  the  hand  by  Sir  Rich<i 
Cox,  and  verily  believes  if  the  same  means  were  employed, 
the  Opposition  would  soon  lose  its  principal  supporters. 

That  your  Memorialist  can  produce  two  of  the  greatest 
Polemical  Writers  of  the  present  Age  in  support  of  her 
character,  ist.  Peter  Willson  who  has  abused  her  more 
than  once  in  his  Universal  Advertiser — an  honour  which  he 
is  never  known  to  confer  on  any  but  persons  of  the  first  ranks 
and  character.  i^v  Geo.  Faulkner,  in  whose  impartial 
Journal  are  contained  a  Score  of  Poems,  One  Dozen  of 
Sonnets,  Six  letters  from  some  of  the  best  Critics,  if  you  will 
take  their  own  words  for  it,  four  Epigrams,  besides  occa- 
sional paragraphs,  all  composed  in  her  praise,  and  which 
are  at  least  as  well  written  as  they  are  printed. 

That  your  Memorialist  is  little  versed  in  the  House- 
keeper's Arithmetic,  having  never  been  instructed  in  the 
doctrine  of  Items,  Dittos,  Sums  Total  and  Balances,  which 
circumstance,  it  is  conceived,  will  turn  out  greatly  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Government. 

That  her  personal  attachment  to  your  Grace  is  so  well 
known,  that  odd  reports  have  been  raised  in  relation  to  some 
intimacies  that  have  past  between  two  persons  that  shall  be 
nameless,  and  which  she  defies  her  adversaries  to  prove. 

1 66 


KNOLE    IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

Wherefore  she  humbly  hopes  that  Your  Grace  will  take 
the  premises  into  your  serious  consideration,  and  oblige  the 
present  Incumbent  to  resign  the  said  office,  your  Memorialist 
paying  her  the  full  value  thereof,  or  if  she  continues  obstinate 
as  old  women  are  apt  to  do,  and  refuses  to  sell,  that  the 
reversion  may  be  granted  to  your  Petitioner,  and  the  rather 
as  she  conceives,  if  it  be  not  done  under  your  Grace's 
administration,  there  may  be  some  reason  to  fear  it  will  never 
be  done  at  all.  Margaret  woffington. 

Mem  :  She  is  ready  and  willing  to  act  as  first  Chamber- 
maid to  your  Grace,  to  warm  your  bed  and  tuck  you  in, 
which,  as  she  is  advised  and  verily  believes,  the  present 
Housekeeper  is  in  no  manner  qualified  to  do. 

§  iii 

I  have  already  mentioned  Lady  Betty  Germaine, 
who,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  first  duke  and  duchess, 
lived  almost  entirely  at  Knole  and  had  three  rooms — 
her  bedroom,  her  sitting-room,  and  her  china  closet — 
set  aside  for  her  exclusive  use.  This  little  prim  lady,  to 
whom  the  three  little  rooms  must  have  provided  so 
apposite  a  frame,  occupied  her  time  in  writing  letters, 
in  stitching  at  crewel  work  with  brightly-coloured 
wools,  in  making  pot-pourri  to  fill  the  bowls  on  the 
window  ledges,  and  in  telling  anecdotes  of  Queen 
Anne,  whose  lady-in-waiting  she  had  once  been,  since 
to  her,  no  doubt,  in  common  with  all  human  nature, 
the  days  which  were  the  past  were  preferable  to  the 
days  which  were  the  present.  She  was,  primarily,  the 
friend  of  the  Duchess  of  Dorset,  and  for  once  a  woman 
was  installed  in  the  house  whose  coiffure  and  petticoats 
the  wind  of  scandal  was  unable  to  ruffle.  They  com- 
posed she,  the  duchess,  the  duke,  and  Lord  George,  a 
harmonious  quartette,  whose  correspondence  survives, 
voluminous  and  intimate,  pricked  into  sharper  high- 

167 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

lights  here  and  there  by  the  pen  of  Swift.  '*  As  to  my 
duchess,"  writes  Lady  Betty,  "  she  is  so  reserved  that 
perhaps  she  may  not  be  at  first  so  much  admired." 
The  duke  she  thought  "  great-souled,"  and  it  must 
have  been  an  occasion  of  great  distress  to  her  that  her 
friend  Swift  should  not  always  share  her  views: 

Madam  [he  writes  to  her  after  failing  to  obtain  some 
favour  from  Dorset'],  I  owe  your  Ladyship  the  acknowledge- 
ment of  a  letter  I  have  long  received,  relating  to  a  request 
I  made  to  my  Lord  Duke.  I  now  dismiss  you,  Madam, 
from  your  office  of  being  a  go-between  upon  any  affair  I 
might  have  with  his  Grace.  I  will  never  more  trouble  him, 
either  with  my  visits  or  application.  His  business  in  this 
kingdom  is  to  make  himself  easy  ;  his  lessons  are  all  pre- 
scribed for  him  from  Court ;  and  he  is  sure,  at  a  very  cheap 
rate,  to  have  a  majority  of  most  corrupt  slaves  and  idiots 
at  his  devotion.  The  happiness  of  this  Kingdom  is  of  no 
more  consequence  to  him  than  it  would  be  to  the  Great 
Mogul  .  .  . 

One  wonders  whether  such  suggestions  troubled 
Lady  Betty.  Was  it  possible  that  her  great-souled 
friend  would  not  be  Lord  Steward  and  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland  and  Lord  Warden  and  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Kent,  did  he  not  also  happen  to  be  Duke 
of  Dorset .?  Was  it  possible  that  people  such  as  the 
Sackvilles  occasionally  occupied  positions  due  to  their 
birth  rather  than  to  their  intellect  ?  Was  it  true  that 
he,  and  particularly  Lord  George,  cared  for  their  own 
advancement  rather  than  for  the  credit  of  England  1 
— they  who  were  England,  who  shared  the  blood  of 
the  Tudors  and  the  Howards  and  the  Spencers  and  the 
Cliffords  }  whose  house  was  quarried  from  Kentish 
rock  }  whose  oaks  and  beeches  were  rooted  so  deep 
into  the  soil  of  England  ?  Lady  Betty  herself,  who  as 
Lady  Betty  Berkeley  had  come  from  that  most  ancient 

i68 


LADY  BETTY  GERMAINE 
From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  C.  Philups 


KNOLE   IN  THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

castle — that  rose-and-grey  castle,  the  colour  of  her 
own  dried  rose-leaves,  the  castle  that,  squat,  romantic, 
and  uncouth,  brooded  over  the  Severn  across  the 
meadows  of  Gloucestershire — Lady  Betty  herself  was 
of  all  people  least  qualified  or  likely  to  criticize.  The 
household  at  Knole  was  ordered  on  a  magnificent 
scale,  with  the  duke  and  duchess  and  their  guest  at  the 
apex  of  the  pyramid  which  reposed  on  the  base  of  five 
servants  at  ^20  each,  two  at  ^i^^  two  at  ^10  loj-., 
seven  at  ^10,  two  at  jTS,  thirteen  at  ^6,  eight  at  ^5, 
two  at  ^5,  one  at  ^2,  besides  the  chaplain  who  was 
unsalaried,  the  senior  officers,  the  Steward,  the  Comp- 
troller, and  the  Master  of  the  Horse  at  £60,  ;(^30,  and 
^25  respectively,  Tom  Durfey  living  over  the  dairy, 
and  the  rabble  of  labourers,  gardeners,  and  what-not, 
of  whom  nobody  took  any  notice.  This  was  life  as 
Lady  Betty  was  accustomed  to  find  it  ordered.  If  ever 
she  paused  to  question  its  system,  no  trace  of  her 
wondering  appears  in  her  letters. 

She  had  a  house  of  her  own,  Drayton,  in  Northamp- 
tonshire, considered  by  Horace  Walpole  a  *'  venerable 
heap  of  ugliness,  with  many  curious  bits,"  which  she 
had  inherited  from  her  late  husband,  who  in  his  turn 
had  inherited  it  from  a  first  wife.  This  husband  of 
Lady  Betty's  is  a  peculiar  figure ;  so  peculiar,  indeed, 
so  ambiguous,  and  so  equivocal,  that  one  wonders  at 
his  alliance  with  the  orderly  Lady  Betty  Berkeley, 
unless  this  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  he 
"  possessed  a  very  handsome  person,  and  was  always  a 
distinguished  favourite  of  the  other  Sex."  He  was, 
I  gather,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  of  uncertain  parentage, 
or,  as  Lord  George  Sackville  delicately  puts  it, 
"  believed  to  stand  in  a  very  close  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity to  King  William  the  Third."    William,  at 

169 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

any  rate,  brought  him  over  to  England  from  Holland 
in  1688,  knighted  him,  saw  to  it  that  he  became  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  assisted  him 
with  grants  of  money;  and  Germaine,  who  inherited 
from  his  father  no  armorial  bearings,  was  accustomed 
to  use  a  red  cross,  which  might  be  taken  to  mean  that 
his  actual  was  higher  than  his  ostensible  birth.  This 
gentleman  combined  with  the  instincts  of  a  collector 
a  profound  ignorance  of  artistic  matters.  His  principal 
pride  was  his  collection  of  ''  Rarities,"  in  which  he 
would  exhibit  the  dagger  of  Henry  VIII ;  he  believed 
a  certain  Sir  Matthew  Germaine  to  be  the  author  of 
St.  Matthew's  Gospel;  and  at  Drayton,  where  he  was 
building  a  colonnade,  he  caused  the  columns  to  be 
placed  upside  down,  as  he  had  mistaken  the  capitals  for 
the  pedestals. 

This  was  the  man  who  married  Lady  Betty  Berkeley 
when  she  was  thirty  years  younger  than  himself.  He 
had  previously  been  married  to  the  Duchess  of  Norfolk, 
whose  husband  divorced  her  on  Sir  John  Germaine's 
account.  After  her  death,  by  which  he  inherited 
Drayton,  he  attached  himself  to  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Dorset,  who  received  him  with  their  wonted  hos- 
pitality; but  this  was  not  enough:  he  wanted  a 
brilliant  alliance,  he  wanted  an  heir  to  Drayton.  While 
at  Bristol  he  "  cast  his  eyes  upon  Lady  Betty,  whose 
birth,  character,  and  accomplishments  rendered  her 
every  way  worthy  of  his  choice."  They  married;  and 
the  friendship  with  the  Dorsets,  to  whom  Lady  Betty 
was  already  devoted,  was  strengthened  by  the  new 
bond.  Although  the  difference  in  age  was  so  con- 
siderable. Lady  Betty,  through  her  "  superior  under- 
standing, added  to  the  most  correct  deportment, 
acquired  great  influence  over  him,"  and  when  after 

170 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

twelve  years  of  marriage  Sir  John  died,  **  a  martyr  to 
the  gout  as  well  as  to  other  diseases,"  he  called  his 
wife  to  his  bedside  and  spoke  to  her  in  these  terms: 

Lady  Betty  [said  he\  I  have  made  you  a  very  indifferent 
husband,  and  particularly  of  late  years,  when  infirmities 
have  rendered  me  a  burden  to  myself,  but  I  shall  not  be  much 
longer  troublesome  to  you.  I  advise  you  never  again  to 
marry  an  old  man,  but  I  strenuously  exhort  you  to  marry 
when  I  am  gone,  and  I  will  endeavour  to  put  it  in  your  power. 
You  have  fulfilled  every  obligation  towards  me  in  an  ex- 
emplary manner,  and  I  wish  to  demonstrate  my  sense  of  your 
merits.  I  have,  therefore,  by  my  will,  bequeathed  you  this 
estate,  which  I  received  from  my  first  wife  ;  and  which, 
as  she  gave  to  me,  so  I  leave  to  you.  I  hope  you  will  marry 
and  have  children  to  inherit  it.  But,  if  events  should  deter- 
mine otherwise,  it  would  give  me  pleasure  to  think  that 
Drayton  descended  after  your  decease  to  a  younger  son  of 
my  friend  the  Duchess  of  Dorset. 

He  then  passed  away,  but  in  one  particular  Lady 
Betty  did  not  take  his  advice:  she  never  married  again, 
although  she  survived  him  by  fifty  years,  and  thus  it  is 
perhaps  that  I  regard  her,  with  her  crewel  work,  her 
china  closet,  and  her  pot-pourri,  rather  as  a  spinster 
than  as  a  widow.  There  is  no  trace  at  all  at  Knole  of 
Sir  John  Germaine,  that  royal  bastard,  that  handsome 
and  enterprising  child  of  fortune,  thanks  to  whom 
Drayton  came  into  the  possession  of  Lord  George  and 
continues  to  this  day  in  the  hands  of  his  descendants. 
Of  Lady  Betty,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  copious 
traces.  There  are  her  rooms,  which  I  have  already 
described  in  the  first  chapter,  her  small  square  four- 
poster,  her  ring-box,  and  the  painted  wooden  figure 
of  a  lady  with  ^tfontange  of  Queen  Anne's  day  on  her 
head.  There  is  Lady  Betty's  own  portrait,  a  miniature 
full-length,  in  blue  brocade.  There  is  yard  upon  yard  of 

171 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

her  industrious  embroidery.    There  is  the  pot-pourri 
which  is  made  every  summer  from  her  receipt  (1750): 

Gather  dry,  Double  Violets,  Rose  Leaves,  Lavender, 
Myrtle  flowers.  Verbena,  Bay  leaves,  Rosemary,  Balm, 
Musk,  Geranium.  Pick  these  from  the  stalks  and  dry  on 
paper  in  the  sun  for  a  day  or  two  before  putting  them  in  a 
jar.  This  should  be  a  large  white  one,  well  glazed,  with  a 
close  fitting  cover,  also  a  piece  of  card  the  exact  size  of  the 
jar,  which  you  must  keep  pressed  down  on  the  flowers.  Keep 
a  new  wooden  spoon  to  stir  the  salt  and  flowers  from  the 
bottom,  before  you  put  in  a  fresh  layer  of  bay  salt  above  and 
below  every  layer  of  flowers.  Have  ready  of  spices,  plenty  of 
Cinnamon,  Mace,  Nutmeg,  and  Pepper  and  Lemon-peel 
pounded.  For  a  large  jar  |  lb.  Orris  root,  i  oz.  Storax,  i  oz. 
Gum  Benjamin,  2  ozs.  Calamino  Aromatico,^  2  grs.  Musk, 
and  a  small  quantity  of  oil  of  Rhodium.  The  spice  and  gums 
to  be  added  when  you  have  collected  all  the  flowers  you 
intend  to  put  in.  Mix  all  well  together,  press  it  down  well, 
and  spread  bay  salt  on  the  top  to  exclude  the  air  until  the 
January  or  February  following.  Keep  the  jar  in  a  cool,  dry 
place. 

In  the  second  respect  Lady  Betty  carried  out  her 
husband's  wishes,  for  when  she  died  herself  at  the  age 
of  nearly  ninety  she  bequeathed  the  "  venerable  heap 
of  ugliness  "  to  Lord  George,  with  ^20,000  and  half 
the  residue  of  her  estate. 

§  iv 

CHARLES   SACKVILLE 

2nd 
Duke  of  Dorset 

Since  I  have  avoided  all  political  details,  which 
would  have  led  anyone  more  conversant  than  myself 
with  the  background  to  the  facts  into  pages  of  dis- 

^The  powdered  dried  root  of  Sweet  Sedge  {^ corns  Calamus). 

172 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

sertation,  there  remains  very  little  to  say  of  the  first 
Duke  of  Dorset.  He  died  a  few  years  before  his  dear, 
dear  Colly,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  that  Lord 
Middlesex  to  whom  I  have  alluded  as  being  so  un- 
satisfactory. There  is  not  much  record  of  this  good- 
for-nothing  duke,  who  enjoyed  his  dukedom  only  four 
years,  and  who  was  married  to  a  "  very  short,  very 
plain,  very  yellow,  and  vain  girl,  full  of  Greek  and 
Latin."  Apparently  he  married  her  no  earlier  than  he 
need,  for  Horace  Walpole  writes  of  "  Lord  Middlesex's 
wedding,  which  was  over  a  week  before  it  was  known. 
I  believe  the  bride  told  it  then,  for  he  and  all  his  family 
are  so  silent  that  they  would  never  have  mentioned  it ; 
she  might  have  popped  out  a  child,  before  a  single  Sack- 
ville  would  have  been  at  the  expense  of  a  syllable  to 
justify  her."  I  have  already  quoted  the  few  epithets  I 
have  found  relating  to  this  duke, the  "proud,  disgusted, 
melancholy,  solitary  man  ..."  who  produced  operas 
and  spent  enormous  sums  on  defending  singers  in  legal 
actions.  He  was  reputed  mad,  *'a  disorder  which  there 
was  too  much  reason  to  suppose,  ran  in  the  blood  "; 
he  was  certainly  eccentric ;  and  there  is  a  large  picture 
of  him  in  the  ball-room  at  Knole  dressed  as  a  Roman 
emperor,  with  bare  knees,  a  plumed  helmet  on  his  head, 
and  various  pieces  of  armour.  Besides  these  scanty 
documents,  there  are  some  verses  which  scarcely 
entitle  him  to  be  called  a  poet:  Arnd's  Vale^  which 
I  have  never  read,  and  which  is  addressed  to  a  certain 
Madame  Muscovita,  whose  portrait  is  at  Knole ;  and 
others  which  are  at  Knole,  for  instance: 

DUCK    HUNTING 

Hard  by  where  Knole' s  exalted  towers  rise 
Upon  a  green  smooth  plain  a  pond  there  lies, 

173 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

W^ith  verdant  grass  encircled  round,  a  place 

Seated  commodiously  the  duck  to  chase. 

Here  in  the  heat  of  day  the  youths  for  sport 

With  well-taught  spaniels  to  the  pond  resort. 

The  youths  on  ev'ry  side  the  pond  surround, 

With  fav  ring  cries  the  hollow  woods  resound. 

The  eager  dogs  with  barking  rend  the  skies 

Until  encouraged  by  their  masters^  cries 

They  plunge  into  the  stream  :   the  stream  before  ^em  flies. 

Rover,  the  first  that  plungd,  the  first  in  fame 

And  one  from  Charles' s  noble  breed  that  came. 

The  next  came  Trip,  tho'  of  a  bastard  race. 

And  smaller  si'ze,  he  swam  the  next  in  place. 

The  last  came  Ranger,  with  his  spotted  back. 

That  swam  but  slow  :  the  gravest  of  the  pack. 

His  deep  rough  voice  was  of  a  hoarser  sound 

With  long  red  ears  that  swept  along  the  ground.    .    .    , 

And  thus  the  sport  goes  on,  till  weary  grown. 

And  everyone  is  willing  to  go  home. 

The  weary  duck  at  last  swims  close  to  land ; 

They  take  her  up  with  a  kind,  pitying  hand. 

Of  every  spannel  they  extoll  the  praise 

And  all  their  virtues  to  the  skies  they  raise. 

And  then  they,  weary,  homewards  take  their  way. 

And  drown  in  sprightly  bowls  the  labours  of  the  day. 

The  duke's  poems  are  worthless,  of  course,  but 
among  the  Knole  papers  of  this  date  is  one  which  I 
cannot  forbear  from  reproducing: 

AN    EPISTLE  from    DAME    I    ...    h    ...    to   the 
REVD.    MR.     B    .     .    . 

Sweet  youth,  *tis  hard  thy  innocence  should  be 
A  source  of  scandal  and  reproach  to  me. 
Nay,  blush  not — with  reluctance  I  prevail 
0*er  innate  modesty  to  own  the  tale. 

174 


KNOLE   IN   THE   EARLY   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

That  fatal  day  when  first  I  saw  thy  face 
And  marked  each  angel-look  and  smiling  grace^ 
Thy  fair  idea  struck  my  tender  hearty 
And,  oh!  remained,  though  thou  didst  soon  depart; 
Maternal  love,  methought,  thou  didst  inspire. 
Around  my  heart  still  played  the  lambent  fire. 
Thoughtless  of  harm,  why  should  I  aught  conceal  ? 
A  friend  I  meet,  and  thus  the  truth  reveal : 

"  Say,  didst  thou  mark  that  dove-like  form  to-day. 
Those  eyes  that  languished  with  so  mild  a  ray  ? 
Can  fleecy  lambs  such  innocence  disclose, 
E*er  glowed  such  blushes  on  the  opening  rose  ? 
Safe  could  I  take  the  youngster  to  my  bed 
And  on  my  bosom  fondly  rest  his  head, 
Harmless  the  tedious  night  were  so  beguiled ; 
So  watch  fond  mothers  o'er  the  sucking  child.'' 

That  seeming  friend  betrayed  me,  and  began 
To  whisper  through  the  house,  "  /  loved  the  man." 
Then  memory  spread  and  worse  suspicions  rose. 
And  searching  spies  broke  in  on  my  repose  ; 
Nor  chamber,  closet,  bed,  were  sacred  then  : 
They  sought  to  find  thee,  ah  !  they  sought  in  vain  ! 
Thou  wrapped  in  innocence  might  sleeping  be. 
Unconscious  of  the  woes  I  bore  for  thee. 

The  uproar  now  withdrawn,  I  strive  to  rest, 
And  throw  my  arms  across  my  pensive  breast. 
Soon  as  my  eyelids  close  I  see  thy  form. 
Pure  as  the  snow-drop,  yet  in  blushes  warm. 
But  oh  I   what  followed  ? — strange  effect  of  fright, 
I  dreamed  that  in  my  bed  thou  pass't  the  night  .  .  . 

Come,  with  thy  innocence,  thy  smiles  impart 
Fresh  joy  to  me,  and  mend  each  wicked  heart. 
Talk  much  of  charity,  and  Love,  too,  teach  : 
'Tis  mine  to  suffer,  but  'tis  thine  to  preach. 


^15 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Knole  at  the  End  of  the  Eighteenth  Century 

JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE 

3rd 

Duke  of  Dorset 

§i 

THE  portrait  by  Gainsborough  in  the  ball-room 
is  of  a  man  with  a  curved  mouth,  deep  grey- 
eyes,  and  powdered  hair  brushed  back  off  his 
forehead.  He  looks  out  from  the  oval  of  his  framing, 
beautiful  and  melancholy.  ''  I  have  always  looked  on 
him  as  the  most  dangerous  of  men,"  said  the  Duchess 
of  Devonshire,  '*  for  with  that  beauty  of  his  he  is  so 
unaffected,  and  has  a  simplicity  and  a  persuasion  in  his 
manner  that  makes  one  account  very  easily  for  the 
number  of  women  he  has  had  in  love  with  him." 
There  is  much  in  him  which  recalls  his  forefather, 
Charles,  the  Dorset  of  the  Restoration,  but  this  is  a 
personality  less  opulent,  less  voluminous,  more  wistful 
and  more  romantic;  all  his  accessories  are  essentially 
of  the  eighteenth  century — his  Chinese  page,  his 
diamonds,  his  scarf-pin,  his  Italian  mistress  who  caused 
so  much  scandal  by  dancing  at  the  Opera  in  Paris  with 
his  Garter  bound  about  her  forehead.  He  is  the  imme- 
diate precursor  of  the  generation  which  replaced  by 
Gothic  the  Tudor  windows  in  the  Orangery,  made 
serpentine  some  of  the  straight  paths  in  the  garden, 
and  decorated  the  windows  in  the  Colonnade  with 
representations  of  knights  in  full  armour.  He  himself 
escaped  the  baronial  tendencies.  He  belonged  to  an 
age  more  delicate,  more  exquisite;  an  age  of  quizzing 

176 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

glasses,  of  flowered  waistcoats,  of  buckled  shoes,  and 
of  slim  bejewelled  swords.  When  he  had  his  mistress 
sculpted,  it  was  lying  full-length  on  a  couch,  naked 
save  for  a  single  rose  looping  up  her  hair.  When  he 
had  her  drawn,  it  was  pointing  her  little  foot  in  the 
first  step  of  a  dance,  a  tambourine  in  her  hand,  and  the 
Chinese  boy  in  the  background.  When  he  wrote  to  his 
friends,  it  was  in  a  bored,  nonchalant  style,  half  in 
English  and  half  in  French.  His  manner  was  ''  soft, 
quiet,  and  ingratiating."  He  treated  the  women  who 
loved  him  with  an  easy  heartlessness  which  failed  to 
diminish  their  affection.  He  was  possessed  of  no  very 
great  talents  but  those  calculated  to  render  life  agree- 
able to  him  in  the  circles  into  which  he  was  born,  for 
it  was  his  good  fortune  to  be  born  handsome,  rich, 
charming,  and  a  duke,  in  a  century  when  those 
qualifications  were  a  certain  passport  to  success. 

John  Frederick  Sackville  became  Duke  of  Dorset  at 
the  age  of  twenty-four.  He  was  the  son  of  that  Lord 
John  Sackville  who  passes  across  the  annals  of  the  family 
early  in  life  as  a  poet  and  cricketer,  and  later  as  a  sad 
and  shabby  figure,  "always  dirtily  clad,"  living  under 
mild  restraint  at  Vevey,  a  victim  to  melancholia.  There 
was,  however,  no  hint  as  yet  of  this  hereditary  strange- 
ness of  temper  in  his  son,  the  new  Duke  of  Dorset.  The 
young  man  came  brilliantly  into  his  new  possessions, 
paid  the  undertaker  ^66  6s.  for  the  late  duke's  funeral, 
paid  the  Sheriff  ^(^41 8  2s.  for  "things  taken  at  Knole" 
— from  which  it  would  seem  that  the  late  duke  had 
died  in  debt — bought  four  thousand  ounces  of  silver, 
and  entertained  his  neighbours  and  tenantry  to  a  feast 
in  celebration  of  his  succession,  at  which  sixty  stone 
of  beef,  mutton,  and  veal  were  consumed,  thirty-four 
pounds  of  wax-lights  used,  and  musicians  provided.   It 

177  M 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

is  curious  to  see  how  the  price  of  wine  had  altered 
between  the  days  of  Charles  II  and  this  time  ;  namely, 
1769.  Claret  now  cost  54^.  a  dozen,  Burgundy  60^. 
a  dozen.  Champagne  97^.  a  dozen,  and  port  for  the 
servants'  table  cost  20s.  a  dozen,  in  comparison  with 
the  few  shillings  paid  per  gallon  a  century  earlier. 
The  only  thing  which  did  not  [see  p.  133]  alter  in 
proportion  is  beer,  for  which  3  5J-.  a  hogshead  was  paid 
in  the  seventeenth  century  and  £2  los.  a  hogshead 
in  the  eighteenth.  The  young  duke's  time,  we  are  told, 
was  *'  devoted  to  gallantry  and  pleasure  among  the 
fashionable  circles  as  well  in  France  and  Italy  as  in 
England,"  a  phrase  which  begins  to  acquire  a  fatally 
familiar  ring  through  the  generations  of  the  family. 
Perhaps  nothing  else  could  reasonably  be  expected  of 
him.  Life  offered  him  too  great  an  ease  and  too  many 
advantages;  why  should  he  have  rejected  them  ? 
Before  he  had  been  for  a  year  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
honours  and  estates  he  had  set  out  on  the  Grand  Tour 
accompanied  by  the  celebrated  Nancy  Parsons  and  a 
train  of  singers,  actors,  and  Bohemians,  who  clustered 
round  him  in  every  European  capital  which  he  visited. 
Echoes  of  his  extravagance  and  his  escapades  come 
down  to  us  from  Paris  and  from  Rome.  He  enter- 
tained lavishly  every  evening,  inviting  only  those  who 
could  amuse  his  already  blase  appetite;  he  rescued  his 
Nancy  Parsons  in  the  nick  of  time  as  she  was  about 
to  be  abducted  from  a  masked  ball  by  a  noble  Vene- 
tian; he  indulged  his  taste  for  the  fine  arts  "even 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  fortune  " ;  he  bought  a 
Perugino,  he  bought  a  doubtful  Titian,  and  a  number 
of  Italian  primitives;  he  bought  from  a  Mr.  Jenkins  in 
Rome  '*  the  figure  oj  Demosthenes  in  the  act  oj  delivering 
an  oration,  a  fine  Grecian  relick  in  marble,"  and  a 

178 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

bronze  cast  of  the  Gladiator  Repellens,  on  whose  shield 
he  caused  his  own  coat-of-arms  to  be  embossed.  This 
kind  of  existence  he  continued  to  lead  for  two  or  three 
years,  when  he  threw  over  Nancy  Parsons,  returned  to 
England,  and  became  the  lover  of  a  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Armistead.  Meanwhile,  it  appears  from  his  account- 
books  that  large  sums  were  being  spent  by  his  orders 
on  both  outdoor  and  indoor  repairs  at  Knole.  He  put 
down  new  floors,  altered  some  of  the  windows,  and 
bought  further  enormous  quantities  of  silver,  5920 
ounces  in  one  year  alone,  costing  ^2^6'}^  ijs.  jd.^  and 
including  a  hundred  and  forty-four  silver  plates,  eight 
dozen  each  of  forks  and  spoons,  dishes  of  all  kinds, 
covers,  and  tureens.  Occupied  with  Knole,  love  affairs, 
and  cricket,  he  dawdled  away  a  particularly  gilded 
youth.  Details  from  his  account-books  give  a  good 
idea  of  his  expenses  and  occupations:  .  , 

Mrs.  Gardiner,  lace  ruffles  41  o  o 

Butler,  new  chain  80  o  o 

Opera,  expenses  last  winter  1 7  1 9  o 

Opera,  subscription  21  o  o 

Paid  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  78  15  o 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Armistead  reigned  for  three  years, 
but  the  duke  had  other  diversions  in  other  circles:  the 
gay,  frivolous,  and  wanton  Lady  Betty  Hamilton, 
trailing  from  ball  to  ball  with  her  suitors  in  her  wake, 
set  her  heart  upon  him,  and  he,  not  unresponsive,  was 
ready  to  trifle  so  long  as  he  was  not  expected  to  marry. 
Lady  Betty  was  finally  married  off  to  Lord  Derby, 
reputed  the  ugliest  and  the  richest  peer  in  England. 

Many  were  the  means  employed  till  Lord  Derby's  con- 
stant and  assiduous  care  veiled  the  ugliness  of  his  person 
before  the  idol  he  worshipped.  Time  and  despair  made  Lady 
Betty  give  a  hasty  and  undigested  consent.   After  a  day  of 

179 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

persecutions  from  every  quarter,  while  a  hair-dresser  was 
adorning  her  unhappy  head,  she  traced  the  consent  with  a 
pencil  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  sent  it  wet  with  her  tears 
to  her  mother. 

A  re-shuffle  now  took  place:  the  duke  became  the  new 
Lady  Derby's  lover,  and  Lord  Derby  became  the  lover 
of  Mrs.  Armistead.  This  arrangement,  however,  was 
not  of  long  duration.  Lord  Derby  fell  in  love  with 
Elizabeth  Farren ;  Lady  Derby,  it  was  rumoured,  ran 
away  and  had  to  be  brought  back  by  her  brother,  the 
Duke  of  Hamilton:  still  bent  upon  marrying  the  Duke 
of  Dorset,  she  wished  to  divorce  Lord  Derby,  but  was 
foiled  by  the  prudence  of  Miss  Farren.  The  gossips  of 
London  were  much  excited  by  all  these  occurrences. 
Lady  Sarah  Lennox  wrote:  *'  It  is  no  scandal  to  tell 
you  it  is  imagined  that  the  Duke  of  Dorset  will  marry 
Lady  Derby.  I  am  told  she  has  been  and  still  is  most 
thoroughly  attached  to  him."  It  would  be  satisfactory 
to  know  exactly  what  part  Dorset  played ;  I  fear  not  a 
very  creditable  one.  Lady  Derby  was  an  impulsive, 
headstrong,  attractive  creature,  capable  of  real  passion 
under  all  her  lightheartedness  and  easy  virtue; 
her  husband  was  unfaithful  to  her;  her  rival  more  sage 
and  experienced  than  she  herself;  her  lover  ready  to 
take  what  he  could  without  incurring  an  irksome 
responsibility.  My  grandfather's  sister.  Lady  Derby, 
used  to  show  at  Knowsley  the  window  through  which 
the  Duke  of  Dorset  was  reported  to  have  been  admitted 
to  the  house,  disguised  as  a  gardener,  and  it  was  com- 
monly supposed  that  the  infant  Lady  Elizabeth  Stanley 
was  in  reality  the  duke's  daughter.  But  when  the  affair 
threatened  to  become  too  serious  he  was  only  too  ready 
to  resume  his  travels  abroad. 

I  can  only  suppose  that  it  was  during  one  of  his 

i8o 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

absences  that  Horace  Walpole  went  to  Knole  and 
found  it  not  at  all  to  his  liking,  for  he  draws  a  picture 
of  the  place  in  a  state  of  desertion  which  would  surely 
not  have  been  warranted  had  the  duke  and  his  house- 
hold been  in  occupation: 

I  came  to  Knole  [he  writes  to  Lady  Ossory]^  and  that  was 
a  medley  of  various  feelings  !  Elizabeth  and  Burleigh  and 
Buckhurst ;  and  then  Charles  [he  means  Richard^  and 
Anne,  Dorset  and  Pembroke,  and  Sir  Edward  Sackville,  and 
then  a  more  engaging  Dorset,  and  Villiers  and  Prior,  and 
then  the  old  duke  and  duchess,  and  Lady  Betty  Germaine, 
and  the  court  of  George  II. 

The  place  is  stripped  of  its  beeches  and  honours,  and  has 
neither  beauty  nor  prospects.  The  house,  extensive  as  it  is, 
seemed  dwindled  to  the  front  of  a  college,  and  has  the  silence 
and  solitude  of  one.  It  wants  the  cohorts  of  retainers,  and 
the  bustling  jollity  of  the  old  nobility,  to  disperse  the  gloom. 
I  worship  all  its  faded  splendour,  and  enjoy  its  preservation, 
and  could  have  wandered  over  it  for  hours  with  satisfaction, 
but  there  was  such  a  heterogenous  housekeeper  as  poisoned 
all  my  enthusiasm.  She  was  more  like  one  of  Mrs.  St.  John's 
Abigails  than  an  inhabitant  of  a  venerable  mansion,  and 
shuffled  about  in  slippers,  and  seemed  to  admire  how  I  could 
care  about  the  pictures  of  such  old  frights  as  covered  the 
walls, 

I  have  said  that  cricket  as  well  as  love  affairs  occu- 
pied the  duke's  time,  and  in  this  he  was  only  carrying 
on  the  tradition  begun  by  his  father  and  his  uncle,  who 
were  both  enthusiastic  cricketers  and  took  part  in  the 
first  match  recorded  as  having  been  played  at  Seven- 
oaks,  in  1734,  between  Kent  and  Sussex,  Lord  John 
Sackville  and  Lord  Middlesex  playing,  of  course,  for 
Kent.  Six  years  later  Sevenoaks  played  London  on  the 
famous  Vine  cricket  ground  at  Sevenoaks — the  first 


i»i 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

match  recorded  on  the  Vine.  The  young  Duke  of 
Dorset  inherited  his  father's  taste,  keeping  in  his 
employ  professional  cricketers  such  as  Bowra,  Miller, 
and  Minskull,  and  we  have  endless  details  of  the 
matches  played,  an  old  print  of  one  match  taking 
place  on  the  Vine  between  the  duke's  men  and  Sir 
Horace  Mann's  men,  which  shows  the  players  all  wear- 
ing jockey-caps  and  finally  a  number  of  cricketing 
ballads,  more  noticeable  for  their  enthusiasm  than  for 
their  excellence: 

His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Dorset  came  [we  read], 

The  next  enrolled  in  skilful  fame. 

Equalled  by  few^  he  plays  with  glee^ 

Nor  peevish  seeks  for  victory^ 

And  far  unlike  the  modern  way 

Of  blocking  every  ball  at  play, 

He  firmly  stands  with  bat  upright 

And  strikes  with  his  athletic  might. 

Sends  forth  the  ball  across  the  mead 

And  scores  six  notches  for  the  deed. 

There  is  in  particular  a  great  contest  between  Kent 
and  Surrey,  celebrated  in  a  ballad  of  sixty-five  verses, 
in  which 

The  fieldsmen,  stationed  on  the  lawn. 

Well  able  to  endure. 
Their  loins  with  snow-white  satin  vests 

That  day  had  guarded  sure, 

and  it  is  related  that  in  this  match  also  the  Duke  of 
Dorset  was  playing  for  the  honour  of  his  county,  for 
we  are  told  that 

Toung  Dorset,  like  a  baron  bold. 

His  jetty  hair  undrest. 
Ran  foremost  of  the  company, 

Clad  in  a  milk-white  vest. 
182 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Despite  the  efforts  of  the  duke  and  the  men  of  Kent,  they 
were  defeated  by  Surrey,  and  the  duke  met  with  disaster: 

"  O  heavy  news  !  "  the  Rector  cried. 

The  Vine  can  witness  be. 
We  have  not  any  cricketer 
Of  such  account  as  heT 

It  is  satisfactory  to  learn  that  in  the  return  match 
Surrey  was  beaten. 

§  iii 

We  come  now  to  the  period  when  **  the  gay  Duke 
of  Dorset  became  ambassador  in  Paris,"  and  "  his 
encouragement  of  the  Parisian  ballet  was  the  amaze- 
ment and  envy  of  his  age."  It  is  entertaining,  and 
rather  sad,  to  read  both  his  official  despatches  from 
Paris  and  his  private  letters  to  his  friends,  and  to  reflect 
that  while  he  was  writing  to  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire, 
*'  I  suppose  you  will  hear  talk  of  my  ball,  it  has  made 
a  great  noise  at  Paris" ;  or  to  the  Foreign  Office,  "It  is 
hardly  possible  to  conceive  a  moment  of  more  perfect 
tranquility  than  the  present,  the  French  government, 
free  from  the  late  causes  of  its  anxiety,  appears  entirely 
bent  upon  improving  the  advantages  of  peace," — it 
is  sad,  and  certainly  ironical,  to  reflect  that  the  taking 
of  the  Bastille  was  distant  by  a  paltry  three  years. 
With  no  foreboding  of  those  tremendous  events, 
which  more  than  any  war,  more  even  than  the 
career  of  Napoleon,  were  to  change  the  fortunes  of 
humanity,  the  Court  of  France  and  the  English  envoy 
continued  on  their  course  of  enjoyment.  The  Duke  of 
Dorset  became,  naturally,  extremely  popular  in  Paris. 
He  was  himself  not  sure  that  he  wholly  liked  the 
French: 

183 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

All  the  French  are  aimable^  si  vous  voulez,  but  they  are 
capricious  and  inconstant,  especially  the  women  [he  wrote 
home  to  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire] ;  in  short,  I  have  really  no 
friend  here  but  Mrs.  B.  [Marie  Antoinette],  and  then  I  see 
her  so  seldom  that  I  forget  half  what  I  want  to  say  to  her. 
The  Frenchmen  are  all  jealous  and  treacherous,  so  that 
between  the  capriciousness  of  the  fair  sex  and  the  want  of 
confidence  I  have  in  the  other_;<?  me  sens  vraiment  malheureux^ 
I  assure  you,  my  dearest  duchess. 

But  the  French  had  no  corresponding  fault  to  find. 
The  English  ambassador  was  princely  and  lavish;  he 
v^as  spending  money,  as  he  himself  owned,  at  the  rate 
of  ^11,000  a  year;  he  was  greatly  in  the  Queen's 
favour,  so  greatly  that  he  has  been  included  by  certain 
authorities  (notably  Tilly)  in  their  lists  of  her  lovers. 
Sir  Nathaniel  Wraxall,  who,  although  an  inaccurate 
was  yet  a  contemporary  writer,  says  that  this  was  not 
so,  and  that  he  has  seen  a  letter-case,  preserved  by  the 
duke,  full  of  Marie  Antoinette's  notes  addressed  to 
him.  Wraxall  says  that  they  were  written  on  private 
concerns,  commissions  that  she  requested  him  to 
execute  for  her,  principally  regarding  English  articles 
of  dress  or  ornament,  and  other  innocent  and  un- 
important matters.  Whether  Dorset  was  or  was  not 
her  lover  is  not  of  the  smallest  importance;  and  surely 
no  one  would  grudge,  at  this  distance  of  time,  any 
pleasure  that  a  princess  so  young  and  so  unfortunate 
might  have  enjoyed  in  life. 

A  question  in  which  the  Duke  was  naturally  much 
interested  was  the  affair  of  the  diamond  necklace. 
His  despatches  to  the  Foreign  Office  are  full  of 
references  to  the  story,  from  August  1785  onwards: 

The  usually  credited  account  is,  that  the  Cardinal  [de 
Rohan]  has  forged  an  order  from  the  Queen  to  the  Jeweller 
of  the  Crown  to  deliver  to  him  diamonds  to  the  amount  of 

184 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

T, 600,000  livres,  and  which  diamonds  he  actually  received. 
What  makes  this  event  the  more  extraordinary  is  that  the 
Cardinal  is  known  to  be  a  man  of  extremely  good  parts,  and 
is  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  greatest  honour  and  revenues  to 
which  any  subject  in  the  Church  can  aspire. 

And  again: 

Mme.  de  la  Motte,  from  an  apprehension  that  her  life 
is  in  danger,  affects  to  have  lost  her  senses.  The  jailer,  upon 
entering  her  room  the  day  before  yesterday,  was  some  time 
before  he  discovered  her,  and  at  length  found  her  under  her 
bed,  quite  naked. 

It  would,  of  course,  take  up  too  much  space  to  give 
all  Dorset's  despatches  on  this  subject.  I  mention  them 
chiefly  because  a  large  proportion  of  the  diamonds 
composing  the  original  necklace  are  at  Knole,  one  half 
having  been  purchased  by  the  Duke  of  Dorset  after 
the  necklace  had  been  split  up  and  brought  to  England, 
and  the  other  half  by  the  Duke  of  Sutherland.  This, 
at  least,  is  the  tradition ;  and  there  is  some  evidence  to 
support  it,  in  a  receipt  among  the  Knole  papers: 

IRCCCiUCD  of  his  Grace  the  duke  of  dorset  nine  hundred 
and  seventy-five  pounds  for  a  brilliant  necklace. 
^975  For  Mr.  jefferys  and  self,  wm  jones. 

and  this  receipt  is  endorsed  "  Paid  1790,"  which 
tallies  with  the  date  when  the  necklace  was  sold  by 
De  la  Motte  to  Jefferys,  a  jeweller  in  Piccadilly.  They 
are  beautiful  diamonds,  small,  but  very  blue,  and  are 
set  at  present  in  the  shape  of  a  tasselled  diadem. 

Another  topic  which  temporarily  exercised  the  duke 
while  in  Paris  was  the  "  very  extraordinary  proposal  " 
made  to  the  French  Government  by  a  M.  Montgolfier  to 

construct  a  balloon  of  a  certain  diameter  to  carry  sixteen 
persons.  The  project  [the  despatch  continues']  is  to  carry  on 
a  trade  between  this  part  and  the  South  of  France  ;   Paris 

185 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

and  Marseilles  are  the  two  places  named.  The  balloon  is  to 
be  freighted  with  plate  glass,  and  the  return  to  be  made  in 
reams  of  paper.  M.  de  Calonne  has  hitherto  received  the 
proposal  with  great  coolness,  as  M.  Montgolfier  requires  an 
advance  of  60,000  livres  Tournais.  It  is,  however,  under 
contemplation,  as  M.  Montgolfier  has  declared  his  intention 
of  making  the  offer  to  our  government  in  case  he  does  not 
meet  with  encouragement  here.  It  is  said  that  the  Comp- 
troller General  rather  discourages  enterprises  of  this  sort,  as 
any  further  progress  in  the  art  of  conducting  balloons  might 
tend  to  prejudice  the  revenues  of  the  City  of  Paris,  which 
will  shortly  be  surrounded  by  a  wall,  the  cost  of  which  is 
estimated  at  four  or  five  millions. 

The  duke  naturally  thought  M.  Montgolfier's  plans 
nonsensical : 

I  should  almost  scruple  to  mention  to  your  Lordship  an 
undertaking  so  extraordinary  [he  says']  had  I  not  heard  from 
exceedingly  good  authority  that  such  a  plan  is  seriously  in 
agitation.  Great  credit  is  given  to  M.  Montgolfier's  superior 
skill  in  these  matters,  and  that  gentleman's  friends  are 
sanguine  in  their  expectations  of  his  success.  The  weight 
he  proposes  to  carry  exceeds  that  of  a  waggon-load  I 

He  gives  some  further  details  of  what  M.  Mont- 
golfier, who  "  pretends  to  have  at  last  discovered  means 
of  directing  the  course  of  Balloons,"  proposes  to  do: 

He  has  obtained  the  sanction  of  M.  de  Calonne  for  his 
first  experiment,  which  is  to  be  made  the  first  day  of  next 
May,  when  he  engages  to  depart  from  a  town  in  Auvergne, 
distant  from  Paris  1 50  miles,  and  to  descend  at  or  near  this 
City  in  the  space  of  seven  hours. 

A  month  later  he  writes : 

The  government  has  at  last  accepted  M.  Montgolfier's 
proposal.  30,000  livres  are  to  be  granted  to  him  in  advance 
for  the  experiment,  and  if  it  succeeds  the  whole  of  his 
expenses   will    be   paid   without   any   examination   of  his 

186 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

accounts,  a  pension  granted  to  him,  and  every  honorary, 
recompense  bestowed  on  him  to  which  he  can  aspire.    He 
pretends   to   have   discovered   the   means   of  guiding   his 
machine,  but  it  was  not  till  after  his  project  to  England,  in 
case  of  refusal  here,  that  it  was  accepted. 

On  such  topics  as  the  diamond  necklace  and  M. 
Montgolfier  and  current  affairs  Dorset  beguiled  his 
leisure  and  that  of  the  Foreign  Office.  There  is  no 
indication  that  he  detected  any  signs  of  the  trouble  in 
store.  It  is  true  that  occasionally  he  writes  in  this 
strain  : 

Their  Majesties,  the  Dauphin,  and  the  rest  of  the  Royal 
family,  are  removed  from  Fontainebleau  to  Versailles.  The 
expenses  attending  these  journeys  of  the  Court  is  incredible. 
The  due  de  Polignac  told  me  that  he  had  given  orders  for 
2 1 1 5  horses  for  this  service.  .  .  .  Besides  this,  an  adequate 
proportion  of  horses  are  ordered  for  the  removal  of  the  heavy 
baggage.  ...  It  is  asserted  that  M.  de  Calonne  will  be 
under  the  necessity  of  borrowing  at  least  eight  millions  of 
livres  next  year, 

and  that  after  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  he  was  moved  to 
write:  "  I  really  think  it  necessary  that  some  public 
caution  be  given  to  put  those  upon  their  guard  who 
may  propose  to  visit  this  part  of  the  continent."  But 
beyond  these  occasional  comments  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  troubled  by  any  thoughts  of  the  future.  He 
did  not  foresee  that  his  friend  "  Mrs.  B.,"  to  whom  after 
his  return  to  England  he  continued  to  supply  English 
gloves,  would  lose  upon  the  scaffold  that  little  head 
which  had  carried  so  gaily  the  butterfly  or  the  frigate, 
or  that  within  two  or  three  years'  time  the  English 
newspapers  would  be  writing:  "The  Duke  of  Dorset's 
seat  at  Knole  is  a  place  of  rendezvous  for  the  banished 
French  noblesse  at  this  time  resident  in  England,"  or 
that  he  would  be  entertaining  there  as  a  fugitive  his 

187 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

friend  Champcenetz,  a  young  officer  in  the  Swiss 
Guards  and  author  of  a  "  Petit  traite  de  V amour  des 
jemmes  pour  les  sots.^^  Dorset  would  no  doubt  have 
proved  a  perfectly  adequate  ambassador  in  normal 
times,  but  that  vast  situation  with  its  infinite  ramifica- 
tions was  beyond  an  intellect  that  accepted  for  granted 
the  existing  regime  under  which  dukes  were  born  for 
pleasure  and  labourers  were  not.  But  with  all  the  fore- 
sight in  the  world  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  he  could 
have  done,  or  how  the  course  of  history  could  have 
been  affected,  had  he  sent  home  grave  warnings  instead 
of  babbling  of  the  diamond  necklace  and  M.  Mont- 
golfier. 

There  was  another  distraction  for  him  in  Paris: 
Giannetta  Baccelli,  an  Italian  dancer.  The  duke  seems 
to  have  lost  his  head  completely  over  her  for  the  time 
being,  for  he  gave  her  his  Garter  to  wear  as  a  hair- 
ribbon,  with  "  HONI  SOIT  QUI  MAL  Y  PENSE  " 
in  diamonds,  brought  her  home  to  England  with  him, 
sent  her  to  a  ball  in  Sevenoaks  wearing  the  family 
jewels — which  provoked  a  great  scandal  in  the  county 
— and  gave  her  one  of  the  towers  at  Knole,  which  to 
this  day  remains,  through  the  mispronunciation  of  the 
English  servants,  '*  Shelley's  Tower."  It  was  for  this 
lady,  or  so  the  rumour  ran,  that  he  finally  rejected  the 
faithful  and  unfortunate  Lady  Derby.  There  was 
nothing  that  Dorset  would  not  do  for  Baccelli.  He  had 
her  painted  by  Reynolds,  and  painted  and  drawn  by 
Gainsborough,  and  sculpted  from  the  nude.  He  even 
wrote  to  his  friend  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  asking 
her  to  do  what  she  could  for  his  protegee,  **  I  don't  ask 
you  to  do  anything  for  her  openly,"  he  wrote,  "  but 
I  hope  que  quand  il  s^agit  de  ses  talents  you  will  com- 
mend her.   I  assure  you,"  he  adds  rather  pathetically, 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

"  she  is  une  bonne  Jille,  very  clever,  and  un  excellent 
coeur^  and  her  dancing  is  really  wonderful." 

Gainsborough's  large  full-length  portrait  of  Baccelli, 
originally  at  Knole,  has  been  sold;  but  his  pencil 
sketch  for  it  remains,  rather  faded  and  very  delicate 
of  line.  It  is  drawn  in  the  ball-room :  Baccelli  stands 
on  a  model's  throne,  pointing  her  toe  and  lifting  up  her 
skirt;  Gainsborough  himself  stands  in  front  of  her, 
a  palette  in  his  hand,  so  that  he  turns  his  back  towards 
the  person  looking  at  the  drawing;  the  Chinese  page, 
in  a  round  hat,  stands  by.  It  reconstructs  with  great 
vividness  the  scene  of  her  posing  in  the  ball-room.  The 
only  pity  is  that  the  artist  should  not  have  drawn  in 
the  duke,  who  was  surely  there,  looking  on,  and 
criticizing  and  making  suggestions.  The  receipt  for 
the  big  picture  is  at  Knole,  though  no  mention  is  made 
of  the  drawing  (^see  illustration  jacing  p.  208): 

iR0C0it)0D  of  his  Grace  the  duke  of  Dorset  one  hundred 
guineas  in  full  for  two  |  portraits  of  his  Grace,  one  full-length 
of  Mad^i'^  Baccelli,  two  Landskips,  and  one  sketch  of  a 
beggar  boy  and  girl. 

;^I05  THOMAS    GAINSBOROUGH,    June   1 5,   I784. 

One  of  the  "  two  |  portraits  of  his  Grace  "mentioned 
in  this  receipt  is  the  one  now  in  the  ball-room,  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  Gainsboroughs  I  know— included 
with  five  other  pictures  for  the  ludicrous  sum  of  ^i  05. 

Reynolds'  portrait  of  the  dancer  shows  a  mis- 
chievous and  attractive  face,  with  slightly  slanting 
eyes,  peeping  out  from  behind  a  mask  which  she  holds 
up  in  her  hand.  The  duke  even  went  to  the  length  of 
ordering  the  portraits  of  the  servants  he  had  provided 
for  her,  and  among  the  collection  of  servants'  portraits 
in  Black  Boy  Passage  are  Daniel  Taylor  and  Elinor 
Law,    servants    of   Mad'-'   BaccelU ;    Mrs.    Edwards, 

189 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

attendant  on  Mad"""  Baccelli;  and  Philip  Louvaux, 
servant  to  Mad""^  Baccelli.  She  evidently,  with  her 
servants  and  her  tower,  had  a  regular  establishment  at 
Knole,  and  many  receipts  bearing  her  signature  witness 
the  duke's  generosity  towards  her:  "Received  7th 
April  1786  of  Mr.  Burlington  [the  agent]  the  sum  of 
fifty  pounds  on  account  of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of 
Dorset,  Jannette  Baccelli,"  and  so  on.  They  had 
several  children,  all  of  whom  died  in  babyhood,  except 
one,  alluded  to  in  the  following  letter:  "The  duke  has 
a  very  fine  boy  to  whom  Baccelli  is  mother,  now  at 
school  near  Knole.  This,  we  think,  is  the  only  sur- 
viving progeny  of  the  alliance,"  but,  much  as  I  should 
like  to  know,  I  have  no  idea  what  became  of  this 
romantically-begotten  scion,  or  even  of  whether  he 
lived  to  grow  up. 

Perhaps  the  "  heterogenous  housekeeper  "  of  Horace 
Walpole's  letter  was  Baccelli's  importation,  for  in 
another  place  he  writes  disgustedly  of  "  Knole,  which 
disappointed  me  much.  But  unless  you  know  how  vast 
and  venerable  I  thought  I  remembered  it,  I  cannot 
give  you  the  measure  of  my  surprise;  but  then  there 
was  a  trapes  of  a  housekeeper,  who,  I  suppose,  was  the 
Baccelli's  dresser,  and  who  put  me  out  of  humour  .  .  ." 

The  connection  seems  to  have  lasted  for  a  long  time, 
for  it  is  not  until  the  end  of  1789  that  we  come  across 
an  old  newspaper  cutting  announcing  with  curious 
candour  that  "  the  Duke  of  Dorset  and  the  Baccelli 
have  just  separated,  and  she  is  said  to  have  behaved 
very  well,"  so  that  she  eclipsed  the  records  of  Nancy 
Parsons,  of  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Armistead,  and  of  poor 
Lady  Derby.  It  is,  I  think,  a  not  unpicturesque 
incident  in  the  story  of  Knole — the  dancer  sitting  in 
those  stately  rooms  to  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  or 

190 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

descending  from  her  tower  to  walk  in  the  garden  with 
the  duke,  attended  by  the  Chinese  boy  carrying  her 
gloves,  her  fan,  or  her  parasol.  Those  were  the  days 
when  the  Clock  Tower,  oddly  recalling  a  pagoda,  was 
but  newly  erected;  when  the  great  rose-and-gold 
Chinese  screen  in  the  Poets'  Parlour  was  new  and 
brilliant  in  the  sun ;  when  the  Coromandel  chests  were 
new  toys;  and  the  Italian  pictures  and  the  statuary 
brought  back  by  the  duke  from  Rome  were  still 
pointed  out  as  the  latest  acquisitions.  And  no  doubt 
then  the  statue  of  the  Baccelli  reposing  in  her  lovely 
nudity  on  her  couch  was  not  relegated  to  the  attic, 
where  a  subsequent  and  more  prudish  generation  sent 
it,  but  stood  somewhere  in  the  living-rooms,  where  it 
might  be  seen  and  admired  in  the  presence  of  the 
smiling  model.  Amusement  was  caused  too,  no  doubt, 
among  the  guests  of  the  duke  and  the  dancer  by  Sir 
Joshua's  portrait  of  the  Chinese  boy  squatting  on  his 
heels,  a  fan  in  his  hand,  and  the  square  toes  of  his  red 
shoes  protruding  from  beneath  his  robes.  It  was  more 
original  to  have  a  Chinese  page  than  to  have  a  black 
one;  everybody  had  a  black  one:  "Dear  Mama," 
wrote  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  to  her  mother, 
'*  George  Hanger  has  sent  me  a  Black  boy,  eleven 
years  old  and  very  honest,  but  the  duke  don't  like  me 
having  a  black,  and  yet  I  cannot  bear  the  poor  wretch 
being  ill-used;  if  you  liked  him  instead  of  Michel 
I  will  send  him,  he  will  be  a  cheap  servant  and  you  will 
make  a  Christian  of  him  and  a  good  boy;  if  you  don't 
like  him  they  say  Lady  Rockingham  wants  one."  But 
the  black  page  at  Knole,  of  which  there  had  always 
been  one  since  the  days  of  Lady  Anne  Clifford,  and 
who  had  always  been  called  John  Morocco  regardless 
of  what  his  true  name  might  be,  had  been  replaced  by 

191 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

a  Chinaman  ever  since  the  house  steward  had  killed 
the  John  Morocco  of  the  moment  in  a  fight  in  Black 
Boy's  Passage.  This  particular  Chinese  boy  whom  I 
have  mentioned,  whose  real  name  was  Hwang-a-Tung, 
but  whom  the  English  servants,  much  as  they  called 
Baccelli  Madam  Shelley,  more  conveniently  renamed 
Warnoton — fell  on  fortunate  days  when  he  came  to 
Knole,  for  not  only  was  he  painted  by  Sir  Joshua,  but 
he  was  educated  at  the  duke's  expense  at  the  Grammar 
School  in  Sevenoaks. 

§  iv 

The  year  after  the  parting  in  which  the  Baccelli  was 
reported  to  have  behaved  so  well,  the  duke  married. 
His  bride  was  an  heiress,  Arabella  Diana  Cope,  who 
brought  the  duke,  according  to  his  own  statement,  a 
dowry  of  ^140,000.  She  must  have  been  an  imposing 
figure,  if  one  may  trust  Hoppner's  portrait,  which 
shows  her  walking  in  a  white  muslin  dress,  a  little  dog 
frisking  round  her  feet,  and  tall  feathers  on  her  head; 
and  Wraxall,  who  certainly  knew  her,  says,  with  the 
touch  of  awe  and  even  dislike  perceptible  between  the 
lines  of  all  his  accounts  of  her,  that  "  her  person,  though 
not  feminine,  might  then  be  denominated  handsome; 
and,  if  her  mind  was  not  highly  cultivated  or  refined, 
she  could  boast  of  intellectual  endowments  that  fitted 
her  for  the  active  business  of  life."  Wraxall  writes, 
possibly,  with  a  prejudiced  pen,  for  at  one  time  he  was 
employed  in  sorting  and  classifying  the  Knole  manu- 
scripts, and  in  this  matter  his  views  clashed  with  those 
of  her  Grace  and  her  Grace's  second  husband;  the 
business  was  abandoned  half  way  through,  but 
Wraxall's  trace  remains  in  the  neat,  ejaculatory  notes 
which  I  find  on  the  reverse  side  of  many  of  the  papers — 

192 


HWANG-ATUNG 
A  Chinese  boy,  page  to  the  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset 

From  the  portrait  at  Knolc  by  SiR  Joshua  Reynolds 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

"  curious  !  "  or  *'  not  without  merit  !  "  This  may 
account  for  the  subtle  spitefulness  of  his  remarks. 
Nevertheless,  I  imagine  that  Knole  perceived  under 
the  duchess'  regime  a  considerable  contrast  with  the 
days  of  the  merry  and  pleasure-loving  BaccelU.  The 
new  duchess  was  a  severe  and  orderly  lady,  *'  under  the 
dominion  of  no  passion  except  the  love  of  money,  her 
taste  for  power  and  pleasure  always  subordinate  to  her 
economy,"  and  the  duke  himself,  perhaps  under  the 
influence  of  his  wife,  began  to  turn  from  his  extravagant 
ways  towards  parsimony,  curtailing  his  expenses  in  spite 
of  the  enormous  increase  in  his  income,  and  becoming, 
moreover,  irascible,  fretful,  morbid,  and  quarrelsome. 
The  days  of  his  patronage  of  opera  and  Parisian  ballet 
were  over,  the  days  when  he  was  confident  that  the  talk 
of  his  ball  in  Paris  would  reach  the  ears  of  the  Duchess 
of  Devonshire  in  London.  His  expenses  at  Knole  were 
reported  to  be  reduced  to  four  or  five  thousand  a  year, 
yet  he  could  not  endure  to  hear  the  praise  of  other 
houses,  for  Knole  he  considered  "as  possessing  every- 
thing." It  is  not  an  attractive  picture  of  the  gay  duke's 
declining  years.  Hoppner,  who  had  been  staying  at 
Knole  for  nine  or  ten  days  painting  the  three  children, 
described  the  duke  as  most  unpleasant  in  his  temper, 
anxious  and  saving,  humoursome  and  uncomfortable, 
"  not  sufl^ering  the  dinner  to  be  all  placed  on  the  table," 
and  when,  playing  at  Casino,  he  lost  fifteen  shillings  to 
Hoppner  he  "fretted  when  the  cards  he  wished 
for  were  taken  up."  The  three  children  were  brought 
up  with  the  utmost  severity;  they  were  scarcely 
allowed  to  speak  in  the  presence  of  their  elders;  and 
little  Lord  Middlesex  was  sent  out  of  the  room  in  dis- 
grace at  luncheon  for  asking  his  sister  for  the  salt. 
Yet  I  fancy  that  the  real  control,  under  a  show  of  sub- 

193  " 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

mission,  was  exercised  by  that  commanding  figure, 
the  duchess.  She  never  betrayed  any  signs  of  exaspera- 
tion, whether  the  duke  sent  away  the  dinner,  or 
grumbled  that  Neckar  was  a  man  of  no  family,  or  that 
Mr.  Hailes,  the  secretary,  was  a  man  of  no  family 
either — much  to  Mr.  Hailes'  discomposure.  This 
dwelling  upon  family  was  one  of  his  many  crotchets, 
and  he  was  fond  of  pointing  out  that  the  Sackvilles 
had  never  branched,  but  remained  the  only  family  of 
that  name  in  the  Kingdom,  and  would  draw  attention 
to  the  coincidence  that  Sackville  Street  was  the  longest 
street  in  London  without  branch  or  turning.  Prudent 
and  long-suffering,  no  doubt  the  duchess  had  in  her 
mind  the  advantages  she  intended  to  secure  when  she 
should  be  no  longer  a  wife  and  sick-nurse,  but  a  widow. 
Baccelli's  statue  was  in  the  attic,  and  Mr.  Ozias 
Humphrey,  of  the  Royal  Academy,  was  quite  out  of 
favour  because  he  went  to  Knole  in  the  duke's  absence 
and  took  possession  of  a  room  without  previously 
showing  proper  attention  to  the  duchess.  She  presided 
calmly,  while  the  duke  fretted  and  economized,  and 
quarrelled  with  his  friends,  and  deteriorated  in 
intellect,  and  became  a  prey  to  gloom,  and  grew  old 
and  sad  before  his  time;  she  presided  unruffled,  for  all 
the  while  she  rested  satisfied  in  her  knowledge  of  his 
testamentary  dispositions.  He  was,  in  fact,  although 
only  in  the  fifties,  already  a  very  ill  man.  He  was 
falling  rapidly  into  a  deeper  and  deeper  melancholy, 
and  there  is  a  tradition  that  towards  the  end  he  could 
only  be  soothed  by  the  playing  of  two  musicians  in  a 
neighbouring  room — the  room  now  called  the  Music 
Room,  in  which  hang,  rather  ironically,  Reynolds' 
portrait  of  the  Baccelli  peeping  out  from  behind  her 
mask,  and  Vigee  Lebrun's  portrait  of  the  grave,  grey- 

194 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

haired  lady,  Arabella  Diana,  Duchess  of  Dorset.  He 
sat  in  the  library,  his  hands  fumbling  at  the  breast-pin 
in  hi^  jabot,  while  the  soothing  strains  reached  him, 
veiled  by  distance.  Veiled  by  distance,  too,  the 
memories  of  his  past  floated  to  him  on  the  music,  and 
melted  with  the  music  into  the  solace  of  a  confused  and 
wistful  harmony.  The  past,  so  luminous,  was  not 
wholly  lost,  since  in  memory  it  was  still  recoverable. 
There  had  been  the  fun  of  the  masked  ball  in  Rome; 
there  had  been  the  clandestine  hours  of  tenderness 
with  Betty  Hamilton;  there  had  been  Versailles; 
there  had  been  the  days  when  he  could  glance  down 
through  the  window  and  see  Baccelli  flirting  with  Sir 
Joshua  on  the  lawn.  The  musicians  in  the  neighbour- 
ing room  played  on.  He  had  been  twenty-four  when 
Knole  had  come  to  him;  he  had  not  had  to  wait  for 
his  good  things  until  he  was  grown  too  sober  to  enjoy 
them.  It  had  been  so  easy  to  accept  the  urbanity,  the 
empressementy  everyone  was  eager  to  lavish;  so  pleasant 
to  move  in  a  world  so  bland,  so  obliging,  and  so  polite. 
No  effort  had  been  necessary;  the  fat  quails  had 
dropped  ready  roasted  into  his  mouth.  No  effort:  a 
smile  there ;  a  gracious  word  here ;  tossed  alike  with  a 
casual,  if  good-humoured,  contempt.  Surveying  him- 
self in  his  mirror  while  his  valet  knelt  to  buckle  the 
diamond  Order  round  his  knee,  flicking  with  a  lace 
pocket-handkerchief  at  a  few  grains  of  powder  fallen 
upon  his  coat,  he  had  been  secure  in  the  safe  conduct 
of  his  great  name  and  his  personal  charm.  And  if  the 
faint  ghosts  whispered  round  him  now  in  the  quiet 
library  at  Knole — a  fair  head  thrust  at  him  upon  a  pike, 
the  reproachful  eyes  of  Lady  Derby,  the  stilled  limbs 
of  those  half-Italian  babies  that  the  Baccelli  had  borne 
him — why,  he  could  banish  them :  Lord  Middlesex  slept 

195 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

in  his  nursery  upstairs,  and  the  tall  duchess  watched, 
effaced  though  vigilant,  from  a  corner  of  the  library. 
But  when  she  rose  and  came  towards  him,  thinking  that 
he  had  fallen  asleep  in  his  nodding  over  the  fire,  he  re- 
pulsed her  fretfully,  with  the  gesture  of  an  old  man,  and 
wondered  at  himself  in  his  confused  and  unhappy  mind 
for  this  anomalous  discourtesy  towards  a  woman. 

Next  door  to  the  Music  Room  hangs  the  lovely 
full-length  of  the  three  children,  painted  by  Hoppner 
while  on  that  uncomfortable  visit.  One  is  bound  to 
admit  that  their  appearance  bears  no  impress  of  the 
grand,  solemn,  and  gloomy  household  in  which  they 
were  being  brought  up.  The  little  boy,  rosy,  flaxen- 
curled,  in  high  nankeen  trousers  and  a  soft  frilly  shirt, 
has  his  arms  round  his  baby  sister,  who,  with  bare 
toes,  is  looking  sulkily  at  her  elder  sister's  shoes ;  they 
are  out  in  the  park;  nothing  could  be  more  natural 
or  unconstrained.  My  grandfather  used  to  show  me 
the  baby  girl,  telling  me  that  while  Hoppner  was 
seeking  for  a  pose  for  his  picture  a  grievance  arose 
between  the  two  little  girls  because  one  had  shoes  and 
the  other  had  not,  and  that  on  Lord  Middlesex  taking 
his  sister  into  his  arms  for  consolation,  Hoppner  rushed 
at  them  exclaiming  that  he  could  not  improve  upon 
the  charm  of  this  accidental  pose.  I  think  this  story 
has  a  convincing  ring  about  it.  Certainly  it  was  the 
only  anecdote  which  my  grandfather  had  to  tell  of 
any  picture  in  the  house ;  usually  he  did  not  know  a 
Hoppner  from  a  Vandyck,  a  Kneller  from  a  Gains- 
borough. He  said  that  he  had  the  story  straight  from 
his  mother.  Lady  Elizabeth,  the  sulky  baby  of  Hopp- 
ner's  picture,  and  the  young  woman  in  fancy  dress  of 
Beechey's  portrait  in  the  same  room. 

The  only  pleasant  aspect  of  these  later  years  of  the 

196 


.^^ 


V>i 


JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE  ARABELLA  DIANA 

3RD  Dure  of  Dorset  3RD  D"  hbss  of  Dorset 

THE   EARL  OF   MIDDLESEX 

LADY  ELIZABETH  SACKVILLE  LADY  MARY  SACKVILLE 

From  a  silhouette  by  A.  T.  Terstan,   //p/.     The  property  of  Lady  Sackvillb 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

gay  duke's  life  is  his  friendship  and  constant  employ- 
ment of  the  artists  of  his  day.  Before  he  fell  into  what 
Wraxall  calls  his  "  mental  alienation  "  he  counted 
Reynolds  among  his  intimates,  was  a  pall-bearer  at  his 
funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  accumulated  so 
many  works  of  that  artist  at  Knole,  including  one  at 
the  back  of  which  is  written,  "  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
painted  by  himself  and  presented  to  his  Grace  the  Duke 
of  Dorset  in  1780,"  that  what  was  once  the  Crimson 
Drawing-Room  became  known  as  the  Reynolds  Room ; 
and  the  Reynolds  Room  it  is  to  this  day.  Madame 
Vigee  Lebrun  stayed  at  Knole,  which  she  found  too 
gloomy  for  her  taste,  the  duchess  warning  her,  the 
first  time  they  sat  down  to  dinner,  "  You  will  find  it 
very  dull,  for  we  never  speak  at  table."  Ozias 
Humphrey,  before  he  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  offend 
the  duchess,  contributed  a  number  of  canvases  to  the 
duke's  collection : 

Two  pastels,  12  guineas  each. 

Knightsbridge,  June  25M,  1792. 

His   Grace  the  Duke   of  Dorset  to  Ozias       [^      s.    d. 
Humphrey,  for  a  portrait  in  miniature  1 6    1 6     o 

A  small  crayon  picture  of  the  crossing- 
sweeper  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  with  a  rich 
gold  frame  and  glass  21      00 

A  portrait   of  the  Duchess    of  Dorset   in 

crayons  ^^   ^^     Q 


H0C0it)0D  of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  dorset  the  sum 
of  fifty  pounds  in  full  for  the  amount  of  the  annexed  bill. 


OZIAS     HUMPHREY. 


It  is  perhaps  significant  of  his  new  economy  that  the 
duke  ignored  the  eight  shillings. 

With   Opie,  too,  he  was  on   friendly  terms,  and 

197 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

amongst  the  other  receipts  at  Knole  is  one  from  Opie 
for  the  portrait  of  Edmund  Burke  for  ^24  3J-.  There 
is  also  a  letter  at  Knole  from  Burke,  who  probably 
knew  his  Grace's  weakness  for  his  house: 

My  Lord,  Duke  St.,  Sept.  14,  1791. 

I  am  just  now  honoured  with  your  Grace's  letter,  and 
am  extremely  concerned  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  accept 
your  Grace's  most  obliging  invitation.  I  have  great  respect 
for  its  present  possessor  ;  and  as  for  the  place,  I,  who  am 
something  of  a  lover  of  all  antiquities,  must  be  a  very  great 
admirer  of  Knole.  I  think  it  the  most  interesting  thing  in 
England.  It  is  pleasant  to  have  preserved  in  one  place  the 
succession  of  the  several  tastes  of  ages  ;  a  pleasant  habitation 
for  the  time,  a  grand  repository  of  whatever  has  been  pleasant 
at  all  times.  This  is  not  the  sort  of  place  which  every  banker, 
contractor,  or  Nabob  can  create  at  his  pleasure.  ...  I 
would  not  change  Knole  if  I  were  the  Duke  of  Dorset  for  all 
the  foppish  structures  of  this  age. 

Other  receipts  at  Knole  make  it  clear  that  the 
average  price  for  a  half-length  was  ^27->  while  for  a 
full-length  by  Reynolds  the  duke  paid  ^300. 

There  is  also  a  mention  in  a  contemporary  diary  that 
the  duke  asked  Hoppner  for  his  portrait,  which  he 
promised  should  be  hung  next  to  Sir  Joshua's  portrait 
of  himself.  The  diary  notes  that  Ozias  Humphrey's 
Selbstbtldms  is  "  still  in  the  room,  but  has  been  removed 
from  its  place  next  the  Reynolds."  It  is  "  still  in  the 
room  "  now,  a  man  with  a  delicate  face  and  a  pointed 
nose,  on  the  wall  with  Gainsborough's  hord  George 
Sackville,  Sir  Joshua's  Samuel  Foote,  his  Oliver  Gold- 
smithy  his  Peg  Wofington^  and  his  own  portrait;  but 
the  Hoppner  for  which  the  duke  asked  is  not  there, 
and  never  was;  no  doubt  Hoppner  was  not  sufficiently 
encouraged  by  the  uncomfortable  visit  to  send  so 
valuable  an  acknowledgment. 

198 


KNOLE  AT  END  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

At  this  period  England  lay  under  the  fear  of  an 
invasion  by  the  young  victorious  Bonaparte,  and  a 
scheme  was  set  on  foot  for  raising  a  corps  of  infantry 
to  be  called  the  Knole  volunteers;  I  recently  came 
across  some  of  their  accoutrements  in  an  old  locker 
at  Knole;  they  had  an  amateurish  look.  A  document 
bearing  many  blots  and  the  signatures  of  all  the 
volunteers — or,  in  some  cases,  their  mark — is  also  at 
Knole  : 

HIS  GRACE  the  DUKE  of  dorset's  offcf  of  raising  a  Corps  of 
Infantry,  to  consist  of  Sixty  Men,  to  be  called  the  Knole 
Volunteers^  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  Order  and  pro- 
tecting property  in  the  Parish  and  Neighbourhood  of 
Sevenoaks  having  been  accepted,  and  George  Stone,  Stephen 
Woodgate,  and  Thomas  Mortimer  Kelson  being  appointed 
officers  by  his  Majesty  to  command  the  same,  they  propose 
the  following  Rules  and  Regulations,  which  they  hope  will 
be  cheerfully  submitted  to  by  all  who  have  voluntarily  come 
forward  to  offer  their  services  in  the  said  Corps  at  this 
important  Crisis  : 

1st.  That  each  individual  attend  twice  a  week  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exercising  from  half  after  Six  o'clock  to 
half  after  Eight  o'clock  in  the  Evening. 

2nd.  As  a  regular  attendance  is  particularly  essential,  it  is 
proposed  that  the  small  Sum  of  Sixpence  be  paid 
by  every  person  not  present  to  answer  to  his  Name 
when  called  over  at  the  time  appointed,  unless  it 
appears  he  is  prevented  by  Sickness,  which  forfeits, 
should  there  be  any,  shall  be  spent  by  the  Corps 
at  the  end  of  the  year  in  any  manner  they  shall 
think  proper. 

3rd.  That  every  Man  appears  clean  and  properly 
accoutered. 

4thly.  That  they  do  their  utmost  Endeavour  to  learn  their 

Exercise,  paying  proper  respect  to  their  Officers. 

Finally^  they  wish  it  to  be  clearly  understood  that  their 

Services  shall  not  be  required  to  extend  further  than  the 

199 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Parish  and  Neighbourhood  of  Sevenoaks,  unless  it  be  for 
the  purpose  of  guarding  Prisoners  or  Convoys  as  far  as  one 

^^^g^'  KNOLE,  22  May  1798. 

But  it  is  improbable  that  the  duke  had  much  to  do 
with  the  raising  or  organisation  of  this  corps,  for  during 
the  last  twenty  months  of  his  life  his  irascibility  turned 
to  definite  melancholia,  and  he  remained  at  Knole 
more  or  less  alone  with  the  duchess  keeping  a  jealous 
guard  over  him.  It  is  impossible  not  to  draw  the 
parallel  between  his  end  and  that  of  Charles  the 
Restoration  earl,  his  great-grandfather,  remembering 
especially  the  wildness  and  extravagance  in  which 
both  had  spent  their  youth;  but  whereas  Charles  was 
carried  away  to  Bath  at  the  end  by  that  sordid  woman 
Ann  Roche,  the  duke  was  carefully  tended  in  his  own 
great  house  by  the  reserved  and  prudent  woman  he 
had  married,  too  dignified  to  be  accused  save  under  the 
veil  of  polite  phrases  of  intriguing  to  get  the  control  of 
his  affairs  into  her  own  hands.  So  he  sank  gradually, 
and  in  1 799,  at  the  age  of  fifty-four,  he  died,  when  it 
was  found  that  he  had  so  disposed  of  his  lands,  his 
fortune,  and  his  boroughs  that  Arabella  Diana  was 
left  with  so  great  an  accumulation  of  wealth  and  of 
parliamentary  influence  as  had  "  scarcely  ever  vested, 
among  us,  in  a  female,  and  a  widow." 


200 


CHAPTER   IX 

Knole  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 

§i 

THE  new  Duke  of  Dorset  was  only  five  years  old 
when  his  father's  dignities  descended  so  pre- 
maturely on  to  his  small  yellow  head,  but  he 
had  a  capable  mentor  in  the  person  of  his  mother,  and 
before  two  years  had  elapsed  her  authority  was  re- 
inforced by  that  of  a  stepfather.  This  was  Lord  Whit- 
worth,  recently  Ambassador  to  the  Courts  of  Catherine 
II.  and  Paul  I.  The  circumstances  of  Lord  Whit- 
worth's  recall  had  been  in  the  least  degree  mysterious. 
Various  rumours  were  current;  amongst  others,  that 
he  had  offended  the  Czar  in  the  following  somewhat 
ludicrous  manner:  the  Czar  having  forbidden  that 
any  empty  carriage  should  pass  before  a  certain  part 
of  his  palace,  Lord  Whitworth,  uninformed  of  the 
regulation,  ordered  his  coach  to  meet  him  at  a  point 
which  would  entail  passing  over  the  forbidden  area. 
The  sentry  held  up  the  coach;  the  servants  persisted 
in  driving  on;  they  came  to  blows;  and  the  Czar, 
when  the  affair  came  to  his  ears,  ordered  Lord  Whit- 
worth's  servants  to  be  beaten,  the  horses  to  be  beaten, 
and  the  coach  to  be  beaten  too.  Lord  Whitworth,  in  a 
fit  of  rage  and  petulance,  dismissed  his  servants, 
ordered  the  horses  to  be  shot,  and  the  coach  to  be 
broken  into  pieces  and  thrown  into  the  Neva. 

He  appears  to  have  had  at  least  one  trait  in  common 
with  the  Sackvilles  themselves,  at  any  rate  in  early  life, 
for  it  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  "  more  distinguished 
during  this  period  of  his  career  by  success  in  gallantries 
than  by  any  professional  merits  or  brilliant  services." 

201 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Even  at  the  time  of  his  marriage,  when,  returning  from 
Russia  to  England,  he  found  available  the  wealthy  and 
desirable  relict  of  his  friend  the  late  Dorset,  he  was 
heavily  entangled  with  a  lady  named  Countess 
Gerbetzow,  whose  partiality  for  the  English  Ambassa- 
dor had  been  such  that  she  had  placed  her  own  fortune 
at  his  disposal  for  the  purpose  of  clothing  himself  and 
defraying  the  expenses  of  his  household.  In  return  for 
this  affection  and  assistance  Lord  Whitworth  promised 
her  marriage  as  soon  as  she  could  divorce  her  husband ; 
but  during  the  course  of  the  divorce  proceedings  the 
Ambassador  was  recalled,  and  left  for  England  on  the 
understanding  that  Countess  Gerbetzow  would  follow 
him  there  as  soon  as  she  conveniently  could.  Mean- 
while he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  more  eligible 
duchess,  became  engaged  to  her,  and  lost  no  time  in 
marrying  her.  Countess  Gerbetzow  had,  however,  by 
now  obtained  her  divorce,  and  was  travelling  across 
Europe  on  her  way  to  England :  at  Leipzic  she  learnt 
from  a  newspaper  that  Lord  Whitworth  in  London  was 
engaged  to  the  Duchess  of  Dorset.  Indignant  and  out- 
raged, she  flew  post-haste  to  London.  Too  late:  she 
arrived  only  to  find  that  the  marriage  had  already  been 
celebrated.  But  she  would  not  allow  the  matter  to  rest 
there,  and  "her  reclamations,  which  were  of  too  delicate 
and  serious  a  nature  to  be  despised,  at  length  compelled 
the  duchess,  most  reluctantly,  to  pay  her  Muscovite 
rival  no  less  a  sum  than  ten  thousand  pounds." 
Whether  the  duchess  continued  to  think  Lord  Whit- 
worth worth  the  price  is  not  recorded.  If  he  was  an 
expensive  husband,  he  was  certainly  from  the  worldly 
standpoint  a  very  successful  one,  and  that  was  a  stand- 
point the  duchess  was  not  likely  to  despise.  He  became 
successively    Ambassador   to   the    French    Republic, 

202 


KNOLE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  an  earl,  but  "  we  may 
nevertheless  be  allowed  to  doubt,"  observes  Wraxall, 
who  claims  Lord  Whitworth's  personal  friendship, 

whether  a  humbler  matrimonial  alliance  might  not  have  been 
attended  with  more  felicity  .  .  .  united  to  a  woman  of 
inferior  fortune  and  condition  ...  he  would  certainly  have 
presented  an  object  of  more  rational  envy  and  respect  than 
as  the  second  husband  of  a  duchess,  elevated  by  her  con- 
nections to  dignities  and  offices,  subsisting  on  her 
possessions,  and  who  will  probably  ere  long  inter  him  with 
an  earl's  coronet  on  his  coffin. — I  return  [says  M^raxall^ 
having  thus  dismissed  the  pair]  to  Marie  Antoinette. 

I  doubt  whether  the  little  duke  was  allowed  a  very 
exuberant  enjoyment  of  his  boyhood  with  this  couple 
in  authority  over  him.  Children  were  strictly  brought 
up  in  that  generation,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  duchess 
was  by  nature  a  severe  and  not  very  sympathetic 
woman.  The  little  boy  and  his  sisters  must  have  been 
docile  and  well  behaved  in  the  great  house  and  gardens 
which  belonged  to  him  in  name  only,  but  which  in 
practice  were  entirely  under  his  mother's  control,  for 
her  to  alter  the  windows  as  she  pleased,  and  to  put 
Lord  Whitworth's  cognizance  in  the  stained  glass 
beside  the  Sackville  arms.  I  visualize — I  scarcely  know 
why — the  duchess  and  Lord  Whitworth  almost  as  the 
jailers  of  the  small  inheritor.  There  is  nothing  to 
justify  such  a  theory;  and,  indeed,  very  little  record 
remains  of  that  short  life:  there  is  his  rocking-horse— 
an  angular,  long-necked,  maneless  animal,  which  in  due 
course  became  my  property,  after  passing  through  the 
two  intervening  generations — his  brief  friendship  with 
Byron  as  a  schoolboy,  and  his  portrait  as  a  tall,  fair 
young  man  in  dark  blue  academical  robes.  There  is  very 
little  else  to  mark  his  passage  across  the  stage  of  Knole. 

203 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

He  came,  late  in  time,  of  a  race  never  remarkable  for 
strength  of  character,  and  the  obituary  notice  which 
described  him  as  having  possessed  gentle  and  engaging 
manners,  tinctured  by  shyness,  and  of  amiable  temper, 
probably  came  nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  generality  of 
such  eulogies.  Byron  has  told  us  nothing  in  the  least 
illuminating  of  his  friend.  He  has  left  a  long  address 
in  verse,  included  in  Hours  of  Idleness^  in  which  he  is 
careful  to  explain  that  the  duke  was  his  fag  at  Harrow, 

Whom  still  affection  taught  me  to  defend^ 
And  made  me  less  a  tyrant  than  a  friend^ 
Though  the  harsh  custom  of  our  youthful  band 
Bade  thee  obey^  and  gave  me  to  command^ 

and  equally  careful  to  remind  him  that  they  might  in 
later  years  meet  in  the  House  of  Lords, 

Since  chance  has  thrown  us  in  the  self-same  sphere, 
Since  the  same  senate^  nay^  the  same  debate. 
May  one  day  claim  our  suffrage  for  the  state. 

The  rest  of  the  poem  is  an  exhortation  to  the  duke, 
whose  "  passive  tutors,  fearful  to  dispraise,"  may 

View  ducal  errors  with  indulgent  eyes. 
And  wink  at  faults  they  tremble  to  chastise, 

to  be  worthy  of  the  record  his  ancestors  have  left  him; 
of  he  who  "called,  proud  boast!  the  British  drama  forth," 
and  of  that  other  one,  Charles,  "The  pride  of  princes,  and 
the  boast  of  song" — to  become,  in  fine,  "  Not  Fortune's 
minion,  but  her  noblest  son."  One  suspects,  in  fact,  that 
Byron  himself  viewed  the  errors  of  his  ducal  fag  with 
an  indulgent  eye,  and  the  depth  of  the  friendship,  on 
Byron's  part  at  least,  is  easily  measured  by  the  letters 
he  wrote  on  hearing  of  the  duke's  death — letters  whose 
cynicism  is  perhaps  atoned  for  by  their  frankness: 

I  have  just  been — or,  rather,  ought  to  be — very  much 
shocked  by  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Dorset  \}ie  wrote  to 

204 


GEORGE  JOHN  FREDERICK  SACKVILLE,  4TH  Duke  of  Dorset 

LADY  MARY  SACKVILLE  LADY  ELIZABETH  SACKVILLE 

From  the  portrait  at  Knole  by  Hoppner 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

Tom  Moore].  We  were  at  school  together,  and  then  I  was 
passionately  attached  to  him.  Since,  we  have  never  met — 
but  once,  I  think,  in  1805 — and  it  would  be  a  paltry 
affectation  to  pretend  that  I  had  any  feeling  for  him  worth 
the  name.  But  there  was  a  time  in  my  life  when  this  event 
would  have  broken  my  heart ;  and  all  I  can  say  for  it  now 
is  that — it  is  not  worth  breaking. 
Adieu — it  is  all  a  farce. 

And  he  alludes  to  it  once  more,  a  fortnight  later, 
again  writing  to  Moore,  to  say  that  "  the  death  of  poor 
Dorset — and  the  recollection  of  what  I  once  felt,  and 
ought  to  have  felt  now,  but  could  not,"  has  set  him 
pondering. 

That,  then,  is  all  which  the  boy  could  leave  behind 
him — that  he  should  set  Byron,  for  a  moment,  ponder- 
ing.   From  such  slight  traces — the  English  little  boy 
of  the  Hoppner,  the  old-fashioned  rocking-horse,  and 
the  portrait  of  the  fair  young  man — we  have  to  recon- 
struct as  best  we  can  an  entire  personality.  We  have  to 
figure  him  running  about  the  garden  at  Knole;  kissing 
his  mother's  hand — surely  never  throwing  his  arms 
about  her — his  grave  little  bow  to  Lord  Whitworth; 
the  "  your  Grace  "  of  his  nurse's  behests;    the  brief 
contact   with   the   dazzling   personality   of   Byron   at 
Harrow;   the  stir  with  which  he  cannot  have  failed  to 
anticipate  the  advantages  of  his  life  and  his  emancipa- 
tion. We  have  the  account  of  him  playing  tennis,  when 
a  ball  hit  him  in  the  eye,  and  obliged  him  to  be  for  ever 
after  "  continually  applying  leeches  and  blisters  and 
ointments  and  other  disagreeable  remedies,"  and  to 
be  "  very  moderate  in  all  exercises  that  heat  or  agitate 
the  frame."  We  have,  finally,  his  tragic  end  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  to  which  additional  poignancy  is  lent 
by  the  fact  that  he  had  recently  become  engaged. 
He  had  gone  to  Ireland,  where  his  stepfather  was 

205 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

then  Viceroy,  to  stay  with  his  friend  and  quondam 
school-fellow  Lord  Powerscourt.  On  the  day  after  his 
arrival  the  two  young  men,  with  Lord  Powerscourt's 
brother,  Mr.  Wingfield,  went  out  hunting,  and  after 
a  fruitless  morning  they  were  about  to  return  home 
when  they  put  up  a  hare: 

The  hare  made  for  the  inclosures  on  Kilkenny  Hill.  They 
had  gone  but  a  short  distance,  when  the  Duke,  who  was  an 
excellent  forward  horseman,  rode  at  a  wall,  which  was  in 
fact  a  more  dangerous  obstacle  than  it  appeared  to  be.  .  .  . 
The  Duke's  mare  attempted  to  cover  all  at  one  spring,  and 
cleared  the  wall,  but,  alighting  among  the  stones  on  the 
other  side,  threw  herself  headlong,  and,  turning  in  the  air, 
came  with  great  violence  upon  her  rider,  who  had  not  lost 
his  seat ;  he  undermost,  with  his  back  on  one  of  the  large 
stones,  and  she  crushing  him  with  all  her  weight  on  his 
chest,  and  struggling  with  all  her  might  to  recover  her  legs. 
The  mare  at  length  disentangled  herself  and  galloped  away. 
The  Duke  sprang  upon  his  feet,  and  attempted  to  follow  her, 
but  soon  found  himself  unable  to  stand,  and  fell  into  the 
arms  of  Mr.  Farrel,  who  had  run  to  his  succour,  and  to 
whose  house  he  was  conveyed.  Lord  Powerscourt,  in  the 
utmost  anxiety  and  alarm,  rode  full  speed  for  medical 
assistance,  leaving  his  brother,  Mr.  Wingfield,  to  pay  every 
possible  attention  to  the  Duke.  But,  unfortunately,  the 
injury  was  too  severe  to  be  counteracted  by  human  skill  ; 
life  was  extinct  before  any  surgeon  arrived.  Such  was  the 
melancholy  catastrophe  that  caused  the  untimely  death  of 
this  young  nobleman.  He  had  been  of  age  only  three  months, 
and  had  not  taken  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  [i  8 1 5]. 

The  author  of  this  obituary  notice  was  at  great  pains 
to  clear  the  young  man  of  any  charge  of  "  unseason- 
able levity": 

It  has  been  said  [he  observes]  that  the  Duke,  in  his  dying 
moments,  made  use  of  the  expression  "  I  am  off."  He  did 
so  ;  but  not,  as  has  been  very  erroneously  supposed,  by  way 
of  heroic  bravado,  or  in  a  temper  of  unseasonable  levity  ;  but 

206 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

simply  to  signify  to  his  attendants,  who,  in  pulling  off  his 
boots,  had  drawn  him  too  forward  on  the  mattress,  and 
jogged  one  of  the  chairs  out  of  its  place,  that  he  was  slipping 
off^  and  wanted  their  aid  to  help  him  up  into  his  former 
position.  He  was  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  be  guilty 
of  anything  like  levity  upon  any  solemn  occasion,  much 
less  in  his  dying  moments.  The  fact  was,  when  he  used 
the  expression  "  I  am  off"  he  had  become  very  faint  and 
weak,  and  was  glad  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of  further 
utterance.  .  .  . 

Now  suppose  a  stranger  to  the  real  character  of  this 
excellent  youth  to  have  heard  no  more  of  him  than  what  he 
would  be  most  likely  to  hear  of  one  whose  constitutional 
modesty  concealed  his  virtues,  namely,  that  he  was  very  fond 
of  cricket,  that  he  hurt  his  eye  with  a  tennis-ball,  that  he 
lost  his  life  hunting,  that  his  last  words  were  "  I  am  off"  ; 
would  not  a  person  possessed  of  this  information,  and  no 
more,  naturally  conclude  that  the  Duke  was  a  young  man 
of  trivial  mind,  addicted  to  idle  games  and  field  sports,  and 
apt  to  make  light  of  serious  things  ?  How  false  a  notion 
would  such  a  person  form  of  the  late  Duke  of  Dorset !  As 
to  the  four  circumstances  above  alluded  to,  if  he  was  fond  of 
cricket,  it  was  in  the  evening  generally  that  he  played.  When 
he  hurt  his  eye  [it  was  on  the  7th  of  December]  he  had  been 
at  his  books  all  the  morning,  and  went  between  dinner  and 
dusk  to  take  one  set  at  tennis.  When  he  lost  his  life  hunting, 
he  had  not  hunted  ten  times  the  whole  season.  And  what 
have  been  represented  as  his  last  words  were  not  his  last 
words  ;  and,  even  if  they  were,  they  had  no  other  meaning 
than  "  Pray  prevent  a  helpless  man  from  slipping  down  out 
of  his  place."  That  he  was  not  a  mere  sportsman,  a  mere 
idler,  or  a  mere  trifler,  witness  the  wet  eyes  that  streamed  at 
every  window  in  the  streets  of  Dublin  as  his  hearse  was 
passing  by  ;  witness  the  train  of  carriages  that  composed  his 
funeral  procession  ;  witness  the  throng  of  Nobility  and 
Gentlemen  that  attended  his  remains  to  the  sea-shore  ; 
witness  the  families  he  had  visited  in  Ireland  ;  witness  the 
reception  of  his  corpse  in  England  ;  witness  the  amazing 
concourse  of  friends,  tenantry,  and  neighbours,  that  carne 
to  hear  the  last  rites  performed,  and  to  see  him  deposited  in 

207 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

X    the  tomb  ;   witness  the  more  endeared  set  of  persons  who 
still  mean  to  hover  round  the  vault  where  he  is  laid  ! 


It  now  became  apparent  hov\^  exceedingly  wise  had 
been  the  precautionary  measures  taken  by  the  duchess 
in  regard  to  her  husband's  will.  A  distant  cousin,  the 
son  of  Lord  George,  succeeded  to  the  title  as  fifth  and 
last  duke — this  part  of  the  succession  was  beyond  the 
reach  of  her  control — but  under  the  terms  of  the  will 
Knole  became  her  property  for  life,  and  she  received  in 
addition,  on  the  death  of  her  son,  an  increase  in  her 
income  of  nine  thousand  a  year.  She  must  certainly 
have  been  one  of  the  richest  women  in  England.  Lord 
Whitworth,  meanwhile  (till  1817),  continued  as  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  as  the  originals  of  the 
following  letters  written  to  him  by  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
with  enclosures  in  Peel's  handwriting,  are  at  Knole, 
I  think  it  not  wholly  irrelevant  to  print  them  here,  with 
a  few  other  notes,  in  view  of  their  interest  as  being 
written  immediately  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and 
having,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  before  been  published. 

Private  Irish  Office. 

Dear  Lord  Whitworth,  June  22nd,  18 15. 

YOU  will  receive  by  this  express  the  official  accounts 
of  the  most  desperate  and  most  important  action 
in  which  the  British  arms  have  ever  been  engaged. 
The  Gazette  details  all  the  leading  particulars — I  have 
just  been  at  the  War  and  Foreign  Offices  to  collect  any 
further  information  that  may  be  interesting  to  you.  It  is 
evident  that  the  attack  was  in  a  great  degree  a  surprise  upon 
the  Allies,  Bonaparte  collected  his  troops  and  advanced 
with  much  greater  rapidity  than  could  have  been  expected. 
It  was  supposed  that  it  would  have  required  three  days  to 

208 


ROCKING  HORSE 
Once  the  property  of  the  4th  Duke  of  Dorset 


^^ 


'^^ 


'•<* 


A  RECEIPT  FROM  GAINSBOROUGH 


KNOLE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

bring  the  British  force  into  line  for  a  general  engagement — 
but  the  suddenness  of  the  attack  gave  them  a  much  shorter 
time  for  preparation.  It  is  said  that  on  the  1 6th  the  Prussians 
lost  fourteen  thousand  men. 

All  the  private  accounts  attribute  the  success  of  the  day 
to  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  personal  courage  and  extra- 
ordinary exertions.  Flint  will  send  you  some  interesting 
particulars  on  this  point. 

When  the  French  Cavalry  charged — the  Duke  placed 
himself  in  the  centre  of  the  square  of  infantry — a  barrier 
that  was  impenetrable.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  despera- 
tion with  which  the  Cuirassiers  fought.  When  they  found 
they  could  make  no  impression  on  the  solid  mass  of  infantry 
— they  halted  in  front  and  deliberately  charged  their  pistols 
and  shot  at  individuals  of  course  without  a  chance  of  sur- 
viving. Lord  Bathurst  showed  me  a  letter  which  he  had 
received  from  Apsley.  He  says  that  Bonaparte  had  a 
scaffolding  erected  out  of  cannon  shot  from  the  top  of  which 
he  saw  the  field  of  battle  and  the  progress  of  the  fight.  When 
he  found  that  success  was  almost  hopeless  he  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  Imperial  Guard — and  charged  in  person. 
They  were  met  by  the  first  foot  guards  who  overthrew  them 
completely.  The  conduct  of  all  the  British  infantry  was 
beyond  praise — Lord  Wellington  had  about  sixty-five 
thousand  men  in  the  field.  Castlereagh  told  me  that  he 
thought  Bonaparte  must  have  lost  the  fourth  of  his  army. 
This  is  of  course  mere  conjecture. 

Of  the  Regiments  of  Cavalry  which  distinguished  them- 
selves the  Life  Guards,  the  loth,  and  the  i8th  are  par- 
ticularly mentioned.  The  field  of  battle  after  the  action  pre- 
sented a  most  extraordinary  sight.  The  panic  of  the  French 
army  after  their  failure — and  the  fruitlessness  of  the 
desperate  courage  they  had  shewn — was  very  great  when  the 
attack  on  our  part  commenced.  They  threw  away  their  arms 
— knapsacks,  etc.,  etc.,  in  the  greatest  confusion.  The 
Prussians  gave  no  quarter  in  the  pursuit. 

The  Duke  and  Blucher  met  for  a  moment  after  the  action 
— in  the  village  of  La  heureuse  Alliance  [sic]. 

The  Belgian  Cavalry  and  some  of  the  British  did  not  much 
distinguish  themselves.  I  hear  that  the  yth.  Lord  Uxbrid'ge's 

209  o 


KNOLE   AND  THE   SACKVILLES 

own  regiment,  have  not  added  much  to  their  reputation — 
but  do  not  quote  me  for  this  piece  of  intelHgence.  General 
Picton  was  shot  through  the  head.  He  behaved  with  the 
greatest  possible  gallantry. 

Schartzenburg  [jzV]  is  supposed  to  have  crossed  the  Rhine 
with  an  immense  force — perhaps  200,000  men  on  or  about 
the  20th.  I  should  rather  say  it  was  expected  that  he  would 
cross  about  that  time.  There  is  no  account  from  Paris — or 
from  the  French  army. 

I  have  sent  you  a  strange  mixture  of  detached  and  un- 
connected particulars.  I  heard  them  one  by  one — in  such  a 
hurry — and  am  now  obliged  to  write  to  you  in  such  a  hurry 
that  I  may  not  detain  the  express  that  I  cannot  reduce  them 
into  any  shape. 

The  consequence  of  our  success  must  infallibly  lead  to  a 
reduction  of  our  regular  force  in  Ireland — forthwith  I  appre- 
hend.   The  Duke  entreats  in  the  strongest   manner  that 
reinforcements  of  infantry  may  be  sent  to  him. 
Believe  me  ever 

dear  Lord  Whitworth, 

Yours  most  truly 
The  Lord  Lieutenant.  robert  peel. 

Paris 
Rue  de  la  Paix — Hotel  du  Montblanc — 

July  15//^,  1 8 15. 
Dear  Lord  Whitworth, 

A  S  I  owe  my  trip  to  Paris  in  great  measure  to  the 
/  \  kindness  and  readiness  with  which  you  dispensed 
X.  JLwith  my  services  in  Ireland — it  is  but  just  that  I 
should  give  you  some  account  of  my  proceedings — Croker, 
Fitzgerald  and  myself  left  Town  on  Saturday  Morning  last 
[8th]  arrived  at  Dover  that  night.  I  was  a  little  disappointed 
to  hear  that  the  Tricolor  Flag  was  flying  at  Calais — How- 
ever we  were  determined,  perhaps  rather  rashly — to  make 
an  attempt  to  land,  and  sailed  the  next  morning  in  an 
armed  schooner — putting  the  guns  below  and  hoisting  a 
flag  of  truce  when  we  got  into  Calais  roads.  The  Governor 
however  was   inexorable — and   positively  refused   us   per- 

210 


KNOLE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

mission  to  land.  We  heard  that  the  white  flag  was  flying 
at  Dunkirk  and  at  Boulogne  and  the  wind  favoured  for  the 
latter — we  made  for  it.  As  we  passed  Vimereux  and 
Ambleteuse  we  saw  the  white  flag  flying  there  and  indeed 
at  every  intervening  village  between  Calais  and  Boulogne. 
It  was  late  in  the  evening  when  we  arrived  off  Boulogne — we 
could  discern  that  there  was  a  flag  hoisted,  and  on  standing 
in  close  into  the  harbour  we  found  it  was  the  Tricolor. 

Fitzgerald  and  I  were  so  sick  and  heartily  tired  of  our 
voyage,  that  we  resisted  most  strenuously  Croker's  pro- 
position to  make  for  Dieppe — we  wrote  a  very  civil  note  to 
the  Commandant — hoisted  our  flag  of  Truce  and  despatched 
a  messenger.  He  was  detained  about  three  hours — he  said 
that  our  arrival  in  the  roads  had  caused  great  alarm  in  the 
garrison — that  he  had  been  placed  under  arrest  on  his 
landing — had  been  taken  to  the  Commandant  who  was  hold- 
ing a  sort  of  Council  of  war — that  the  flag  of  truce  was  mis- 
taken for  the  white  flag — particularly  as  the  Schooner  was 
armed — ^and  unfortunately  for  us  three  or  four  English 
Brigs  were  in  the  offing. 

However  he  brought  with  him  a  civil  answer  from  the 
Commandant  informing  us  that  "  une  mesure  de  suret^ 
militaire  I'occupoit  k  le  moment,"  but  when  he  was  at 
leisure  he  would  send  a  boat  for  us. 

We  were  half  afraid  to  trust  ourselves  to  him,  particularly 
as  he  told  our  envoy  that  he  could  not  recognize  a  flag  of 
truce  in  an  armed  vessel,  but  the  apprehension  of  a  sail  to 
Dieppe  with  a  contrary  wind  overcame  the  apprehension  of 
a  day  or  two's  confinement  at  Boulogne.  The  boat  arrived — 
and  we  landed  at  Boulogne  about  3  o'clock  on  Monday 
morning.  The  Commandant  was  civil  to  us  but  did  not 
conceal  from  us  that  he  was  a  furious  Bonapartist.  He  said 
he  had  no  soldiers — if  he  had  30  that  white  flag  in  the  next 
village  should  not  be  hoisted — or  there  should  be  a  massacre 
if  it  was.  We  proceeded  on  our  journey  about  7  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  Monday — nothing  could  exceed  the 
apparent  devotion  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  country 
through  which  we  passed  to  the  cause  of  Louis — the  white 
flag  was  hanging  from  every  window.  Vive  le  Roi  was  in 
every  mouth.  We  met  with  no  interruption  until  we  arrived 

211 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

at  Montreuil — where  there  was  a  strong  garrison — the 
Commandant  like  the  officers — determined  Bonapartists. 
We  had  nothing  but  Castlereagh's  passport  except  La 
Chatre's  which  was  worse  than  nothing,  but  the  Com- 
mandant allowed  us  after  some  parley  to  proceed.  The 
presence  of  the  military  was  hardly  sufficient  to  keep  down 
the  popular  feeling  in  favour  of  the  King — among  the 
inhabitants  it  was  universal  here  as  every  where  else,  there 
was  not  a  single  exception.  At  Abbeville  we  were  again 
stopped.  Here  there  was  a  very  strong  garrison — 2000 
men.  Party  spirit  was  running  very  high.  The  inhabitants 
were  armed — the  military  seemed  disposed  to  resist  the 
order  which  they  expected  to  receive  on  the  day  of  our 
arrival,  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  leave  the  town. 

Every  precaution  was  taken  as  if  the  town  was  besieged. 
There  were  soldiers  at  every  drawbridge.  The  Commandant 
however  allowed  us  to  proceed — and  we  arrived  safely  at 
Paris  on  the  evening  of  Tuesday. 

Sunday,  i6th, 

Paris  is  surrounded  by  the  troops  of  the  allies  and  nothing 
can  be  more  interesting  than  the  present  situation  of  it.  The 
streets  are  crowded  with  officers  and  soldiers  of  all  nations. 
Cossacks — Russians — Prussians,  Austrians,  Hungarians, 
etc.  The  English  are  great  favourites.  The  Prussians  held 
in  the  greatest  detestation.  If  they  had  entered  Paris  alone — 
or  if  the  Crowned  Heads  had  delayed  their  entry — they,  the 
Prussians  would  probably  have  pillaged  Paris.  They  have 
taken  some  pictures  from  the  Louvre — a  very  few,  however, 
and  none  to  which  they  had  not  some  claim.  They  have 
demanded  the  payment  of  one  hundred  millions  of  francs 
from  the  city  and  at  this  moment — there  are  Prussian 
guards  in  the  houses  of  Perigaux  and  some  of  the  other 
principal  bankers  who  are  held  as  a  sort  of  hostage — for  the 
payment  of  the  contribution. 

We  drove  to-day  to  the  Depot  d'Artillerie,  and  were  told 
by  the  sentry — one  of  the  national  guards,  that  we  were 
welcome  to  see  the  salon — but  that  the  Prussians  had  re- 
moved everything  which  it  contained — the  sword  of  Joan 
of  Arc — the  knife  of  Ravaillac — Turenne's  sword.  I  am 
sorry  for  this — not  on  account  of  the  mortification  which  it 

212 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

will  inflict  on  French  vanity — but  because  I  fear  the  return 
of  the  King  will  be  less  popular — than  it  would  have  been 
if  he  could  have  preserved  entire  at  least  those  national 
monuments  and  relics  which  are  exclusively  French. 

We  paid  a  visit  to  Denon  the  other  day.  He  had  some 
Prussians  quartered  upon  him,  and  was  very  loud  in  his 
exclamations  against  ce  [sic]  bete  feroce  as  he  called  Blucher. 
He  expressed  his  sentiments  very  freely  on  political  subjects 
-—said  the  King  was  not  destined  to  govern  France  in  times 
like  these — and  predicted  a  short  duration  to  his  dynasty. 
He  spoke  in  terms  of  great  and  apparently  sincere  affection 
towards  Bonaparte — he  was  the  last  person  who  saw  him 
before  he  quitted  Paris.  Denon  observed  that  he  had 
committed  a  great  error  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo  in 
quitting  the  army — that  he  had  by  that  step  lost  its  con- 
fidence— that  he  ought  either  to  have  remained  with  it — 
or  to  have  returned  to  it  immediately.  If  he  had  summoned 
the  two  chambers,  informed  them  without  reserve  of  his 
disasters  and  concluded  by  stating  that  his  travelling 
carriage  was  at  the  door  and  that  he  was  going  to  resume 
the  command  of  the  army,  that  even  still  he  need  not  have 
despaired  of  ultimate  success. 

At  the  Tuileries  after  mass  there  was  a  great  collection 
of  Marshals — Peers  of  France — and  other  rogues  of  the 
higher  order.  We  saw  Marmont — Macdonald — Mass^na 
— St.  Cyr — Dupont,  etc.,  and  almost  all  the  General  officers 
of  the  French  army  who  are  in  Paris — and  did  not  take  a 
decided  part  against  the  King.  The  garden  of  the  Tuileries 
was  absolutely  full  of  people,  and  nothing  can  exceed  or 
describe  the  enthusiasm  of  the  women  and  children  in 
favour  of  the  King.  If  shouts — and  applause  and  Vive  le 
Roi — and  white  handkerchiefs  could  contribute  to  his 
strength — his  throne  would  be  established  on  solid  founda- 
tions, but  I  do  not  see  that  men — fighting  men — partake  so 
much  of  the  general  joy — I  confess  I  think  the  King  has 
been  ill  advised  in  making  Fouche  his  chief  confidant  and 
minister.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  must  preclude  him  from 
punishing  treason  in  others — if  he  rewards  so  notorious  a 
traitor  as  Fouche  so  highly.  Fouche  betrayed  the  King — 
then  he  betrayed  Bonaparte — then  he  betrayed  the  Pro- 

213 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

visional  Government  of  which  he  was  the  head  and  now  he  is 
minister.  In  fact  he  betrayed  the  Provisional  Government 
deliberately — and  on  condition  that  he  should  be  the  King's 
adviser.  The  virulence  of  French  traitors — owing  to  the 
impunity  of  Treason — is  beyond  conception.  Grouchy  has 
written  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  requesting  him 
to  intercede  in  his  favour  with  the  King — and  to  procure  for 
him  permission  to  retain  his  rank  as  Marshal  in  the  French 
army  or,  if  that  cannot  be  granted,  that  the  Emperor  will 
allow  him  to  enter  the  Russian  army  retaining  his  present 
rank.  The  Emperor's  answer  was  not  amiss.  He  had 
nothing  to  say  to  his  first  Proposition — and  with  respect  to 
his  second — it  was  an  indispensable  qualification  in  a  Russian 
officer  that  he  should  be  a  man  of  honour. 

Pray  remember  me  very  kindly  to  the  Duchess  of  Dorset 
and  believe  me  ever 

Dear  Lord  Whitworth, 
His  Excellency  Yours  most  truly 

The  Lord  Lieutenant.  Robert  peel. 

Paris,  Monday,  July  i  "jth. 

Arbuthnot  saw  Mr.  Lane  about  an  hour  since  I  had  this 
account  from  him — \  past  3. 

Mr.  Lane  of  No.  5  Essex  Court  in  the  Temple  states 
himself  to  have  arrived  to-day  from  France  ;  and  he  gives 
the  following  account  : 

That  on  the  20th  he  left  Paris,  and  notwithstanding  there 
were  firing  of  guns  and  other  marks  of  rejoicing,  there  was  a 
general  feeling  in  the  town  that  all  was  not  going  well  ;  that 
at  Boulogne  Mr.  Lane  saw  the  Moniteur  of  the  22nd  which 
gives  a  long  account  of  what  is  called  the  battle  of  Marennart, 
stating  that  the  British  were  90,000  men  and  the  French  not 
so  many,  that  until  four  in  the  Evening  the  French  had  com- 
pletely won  the  battle,  but  that  about  that  hour  the  English 
Cavalry  had  attacked  the  Cuirrassiers  and  routed  them,  that 
the  young  guards  coming  to  their  assistance  got  entangled 
in  their  confusion,  and  the  old  guard  was  likewise 
"  entraineey  At  this  moment  some  Malveillant  in  the  army 
cried  "  Sauve  qui  peut "  and  a  general  flight  commenced; 
the  whole  left  wing  of  the  army  dispersed :    He  lost  all  his 

214 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

cannon  caissons  etc.  Buonaparte  had  ordered  the  wreck  of 
his  army  to  be  collected  near  Phillipville,  and  he  had  issued 
directions  calHng  on  the  Northern  provinces  to  rise  in  mass. 
This,  says  the  Moniteur^  ended  a  battle  so  glorious  yet  so 
fatal  to  the  French  arms.  Buonaparte  has  arrived  in  Paris 
on  the  morning  of  the  2ist.  The  Council  of  Ministers  and 
the  two  chambers  had  been  placed  in  a  state  of  permanency 
and  it  was  declared  high  treason  to  vote  an  adjournment. 

(JErttilCt  of  a  letter   from  the   duke  oj  Wellington 

to    SIR    CHARLES    FLINT. 

dated  Brussels. 

19  June  I  8  15. 

What  do  you  think  of  the  total  defeat  of  Bonaparte  by  the 
British  Army  } 

Never  was  there  in  the  annals  of  the  World  so  desperate 
or  so  hard  fought  an  action,  or  such  a  defeat.  It  was  really 
the  battle  of  the  Giants. 

My  heart  is  broken  by  the  terrible  loss  I  have  sustained 
of  my  old  friends  and  companions  and  my  poor  Soldiers  ; 
and  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  with  this  Battle  however  glorious, 
if  it  does  not  of  itself  put  an  end  to  Bonaparte. 
[I  have  been  asked  for  so  many  Copies  of  this  (all  of  which 
I  have  refused)  that  I  am  glad  to  return  it.] 

19  June  18  15. 
On  the  1 6th  to  the  very  great  astonishment  of  everyone 
the  French  attacked  us  or  rather  the  Prussians,  Lord 
Wellington  came  up  with  a  very  few  Troops  including  the 
7  Divisions  and  succeeded  in  stopping  them,  the  next  day 
was  passed  in  partial  Cavalry  actions  and  yesterday  was 
fought  the  severest  battle  that  I  believe  ever  has  been  known, 
the  disproportion  was  immense  so  much  so  that  altho*  we 
constantly  repulsed  them  yet  had  not  the  Prussians  come  up 
at  7  (altho'  in  fact  they  might  have  been  up  long  before)  we 
perhaps  might  ultimately  have  been  annihilated.  Trotter  and 
I  was  on  the  field  at  the  beginning  and  I  count  it  as  the  best 
day  of  my  life — I  was  there  also  to-day — the  French  have 
abandoned  everything — In  point  of  Artillery  it  is  a  second 

Vittoria. 

215 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

Our  loss  is  so  great  that  our  Army  will  not  I  fear  be  in  a 
state  to  act  efficiently — but  as  we  have  done  the  material 
thing,  the  Allies  may  do  the  rest — the  French  Cavalry  which 
was  very  fine  suffered  beyond  expression — For  a  mile  the 
road  is  actually  strewed  with  Cuirasses — when  I  say  this, 
I  do  not  exaggerate.  The  Prussians  are  pursuing  as  fast  as 
they  can  and  with  a  large  body  of  Troops.  There  will  not 
be  a  stop  by  possibility  till  we  get  over  the  Frontier,  after  that 
time  I  dare  not  prophesy,  but  I  do  not  think  they  will  like 
to  attack  us  again. 

The  Action  was  fought  in  front  of  Waterloo  where  two 
Roads  separate — the  one  going  to  Nivelle,  the  other  to 
Genappe — the  position  which  was  a  very  beautiful  one  was 
in  front  of  the  junction  of  the  two  roads.     \unsigned^ 

Nivelle.    19  June  18 15. 

The  great  action  of  yesterday  was  the  severest  contest 
either  Frenchmen  or  Englishmen  ever  witnessed — it  was 
the  most  obstinate  struggle  of  two  brave  and  rival  Nations 
each  firm  in  its  cause — The  gallantry  of  the  French  could  only 
be  exceeded  by  the  resolution  and  intrepidity  of  John  Bull. 
It  raged  from  1 1  till  9  and  was  once  nearly  lost.  The  Duke 
seconded  by  his  Troops  repaired  every  momentary  disaster. 

Buonaparte  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  his  guards  and 
led  them  on.  The  ist  Guards  defeated  them  and  put  them  to 
the  rout  and  then  the  dismay  became  general — The  Guards 
and  generally  the  Infantry  were  the  mainstay  of  the  Action. 
Our  Brigade  had  the  defence  of  a  Post  which  if  lost,  lost  all. 
Our  Light  Company  under  Colonel  Macdonnell  were  there, 
the  Coldstreams  then  went  down  and  we  held  it  to  the  last, 
tho'  the  Houses  were  in  Flames.  The  loss  has  been  immense 
— The  French  are  totally  defeated. 

There  never  was  a  more  severe  Battle  than  that  of  the 
1 8th.  I  enclose  a  little  Sketch  of  it.  The  dotted  Line  from 
Braine  la  Leud  to  above  La  Haye  is  the  brow  of  the  Hills 
occupied  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  The  Troops  had 
bivouaced  just  in  the  rear.  The  other  dotted  line  near  La 
Belle  Alliance  marks  the  brow  of  the  Hills  from  where  the 
French  attack  was  made.  There  are  two  small  Hedges  in 
the  Rear  of  this  one.  The  Attack  on  Hougomont  was  very 

216 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

severe  from  a  little  before  12  to  half  past  one.  Bonaparte 
then  moved  a  strong  Force  (continuing  however  his  first 
Attack  for  several  hours)  to  attack  the  left  of  the  Centre 
where  Picton  and  Ponsonby  were  killed.  He  drove  our 
people  from  the  Hedges  a  short  distance  but  they  soon 
returned  and  drove  him  considerably  beyond  those  Hedges. 
In  the  Evening  he  collected  a  very  great  force  near  La  Haye 
Sainte  and  attacked  the  Right  of  the  Centre.  This  was  done 
repeatedly  by  Infantry  and  Cavalry  but  though  they  fre- 
quently got  through  the  Line  they  could  never  drive  them 
from  their  position.  The  British  Artillery  was  a  little  in 
front.  The  Duke  several  times  left  the  Guns  taking  away  the 
Horses  and  Ammunition,  but  his  Fire  was  too  heavy  for  the 
Enemy  to  bring  up  Horses  to  take  them  off  and  he  as  often 
regained  them.  At  about  7  o'clock  the  French  were  heartily 
sick  of  it  and  retired  rapidly.  The  Duke  immediately 
changed  his  Defensive  operations  to  that  of  Attack  and  at  the 
same  time  Bulow  brought  up  about  30,000  fresh  Troops  on 
the  right  flank  of  the  Enemy  near  the  Village  of  La  Haye. 
Blucher  was  also  near  at  hand. 

The  Rout  at  this  time  was  complete.  The  Pursuit  was 
rapid  and  I  really  believe  that  the  following  morning  the 
French  Army  had  not  50  Guns  out  of  300  and  no  Baggage 
of  any  sort. 

The  latter  part  of  this  Account  I  take  from  others  and 
from  seeing  the  Field  of  Battle  two  days  afterwards.  The 
first  and  second  attacks  I  was  present  at. 

The  Returns  are  arrived  of  Killed  and  Wounded.  The 
British  and  Hanoverians  lost  on  the  i6th,  17th  and  i8th 
845  Officers  and  1 3,000  Men.  The  French  lost  much  more. 
The  Method  in  which  the  Duke  received  the  united  Charges 
of  Cavalry  and  attacks  of  Infantry  is  not  common.  He  formed 
two  Regiments  in  Squares  and  united  them  by  a  Regt.  in 
Line  four  deep  making  a  Sort  of  Curtain  between  two 
Bastions,    [unsigned.'] 

%  iii 

After  Lord  Whitworth's  term  of  office  had  come  to 
an  end  he  and  the  duchess  returned  to  live  at  Knole, 

217 


KNOLE  AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

and  to  make  such  improvements  there  as  were  agree- 
able to  the  taste  of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  Such 
were  the  Gothic  windows  of  the  Orangery,  which 
replaced  the  Tudor  ones  and  were  inscribed  with  the 
date  1823,  and  further  changes  were  projected,  such 
as  a  design  which  was  to  sweep  away  the  symmetry  of 
the  lawns  on  the  garden  front  and  bring  a  curving  path 
up  to  the  house.  This  scheme,  however,  was  never 
carried  out.  The  bowling-green  still  rises,  square  and 
formal,  backed  by  the  two  great  tulip  trees  and  the 
more  distant  woods  of  the  park.  The  long  perspective 
of  the  herbaceous  borders  was  left  undisturbed.  The 
apple-trees  in  the  little  square  orchards,  that  bear  their 
blossom  and  their  fruit  from  year  to  year  with  such  coun- 
trified simplicity  in  the  heart  of  all  that  magnificence, 
were  not  uprooted.  Consequently  the  garden,  save  for 
one  small  section  where  the  paths  curve  in  meaning- 
less scollops  among  the  rhododendrons,  remains  to-day 
very  much  as  Anne  Clifford  knew  it.  It  has,  of  course, 
matured.  The  white  rose  which  was  planted  under 
James  I's  room  has  climbed  until  it  now  reaches  beyond 
his  windows  on  the  first  floor ;  the  great  lime  has  drooped 
its  branches  until  they  have  layered  themselves  in  the 
ground  of  their  own  accord  and  grown  up  again  with 
fresh  roots  into  three  complete  circles  all  sprung  from 
the  parent  tree,  a  cloister  of  limes,  which  in  summer 
murmurs  like  one  enormous  bee-hive ;  the  magnolia  out- 
side the  Poets'  Parlour  has  grown  nearly  to  the  roof,  and 
bears  its  mass  of  flame-shaped  blossoms  like  a  giant  can- 
delabrum; the  beech  hedge  is  twenty  feet  high;  four 
centuries  have  winnowed  the  faultless  turf.  In  spring  the 
wisteria  drips  its  fountains  over  the  top  of  the  wall  into 
the  park.  The  soil  is  rich  and  deep  and  old.  The  gar- 
den has  been  a  garden  for  four  hundred  years. 

218 


KNOLE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

And  here,  save  for  a  few  very  brief  notes  to  bring 
the  history  of  the  house  down  to  the  present  day,  these 
sketches  must  cease.  The  duchess  Arabella  Diana 
dying  in  1825,  her  estate  devolved  upon  her  two 
daughters,  Mary  and  Elizabeth.  Elizabeth,  my  great- 
grandmother,  who  married  John  West,  Lord  de  la 
Warr,  and  who  died  in  1870,  left  Buckhurst  to  her 
elder  sons  and  Knole  to  her  younger  sons,  one  of 
whom  was  my  grandfather.  He  was,  as  I  remember 
him,  a  queer  and  silent  old  man.  He  knew  nothing 
whatever  about  the  works  of  art  in  the  house;  he  spent 
hours  gazing  at  the  flowers,  followed  about  the  garden 
by  two  grave  demoiselle  cranes;  he  turned  his  back  on 
all  visitors,  but  sized  them  up  after  they  had  gone  in 
one  shrewd  and  sarcastic  phrase;  he  bore  a  really 
remarkable  resemblance  to  the  portraits  of  the  old 
Lord  Treasurer,  and  he  seemed  to  me,  with  his 
taciturnity  and  the  never-mentioned  background  of 
his  own  not  unromantic  past,  to  stand  conformably  at 
the  end  of  the  long  line  of  his  ancestors.  He  and  I,  who 
so  often  shared  the  house  alone  between  us,  were  com- 
panions in  a  shy  and  undemonstrative  way.  Although 
he  had  nothing  to  say  to  his  unfortunate  guests,  he 
could  understand  a  child.  He  told  me  that  there  were 
underground  caves  in  the  Wilderness,  and  I  believed 
him  to  the  extent  of  digging  pits  among  the  laurels  in 
the  hope  of  chancing  upon  the  entrance ;  he  made  over 
a  tall  tree  to  me  for  my  own,  and  I  mounted  a  wooden 
cannon  among  its  branches  to  keep  away  intruders. 
When  I  was  away,  which  was  seldom,  he  would  write 
me  harlequin  letters  in  different  coloured  chalks.  When 
I  was  at  home  he  would  put  after  dinner  a  plate  of  fruit 
for  my  breakfast  into  a  drawer  of  his  writing-table 
labelled  with  my  name,  and  this  he  never  once  failed 

219 


KNOLE   AND  THE  SACKVILLES 

to  do,  even  though  there  might  have  been  thirty  people 
to  dinner  in  the  Great  Hall,  who  watched,  no  doubt 
with  great  surprise,  the  old  man  who  had  been  so  rude 
to  his  neighbours  at  dinner  going  unconcernedly 
round  with  a  plate,  picking  out  the  reddest  cherries, 
the  bluest  grapes,  and  the  ripest  peach. 

When  we  were  at  Knole  alone  together  I  used  to  go 
down  to  his  sitting-room  in  the  evening  to  play 
draughts  with  him — and  never  knew  whether  I  played 
to  please  him,  or  he  played  to  please  me — and  some- 
times, very  rarely,  he  told  me  stories  of  when  he  was  a 
small  boy,  and  played  with  the  rocking-horse,  and  of 
the  journeys  by  coach  with  his  father  and  mother  from 
Buckhurst  to  Knole  or  from  Knole  to  London;  of 
their  taking  the  silver  with  them  under  the  seat;  of 
their  having  outriders  with  pistols;  and  of  his  father 
and  mother  never  addressing  each  other,  in  their 
children's  presence,  as  anything  but  "  my  Lord  "  and 
"  my  Lady."  I  clasped  my  knees  and  stared  at  him 
when  he  told  me  these  stories  of  an  age  which  already 
seemed  so  remote,  and  his  pale  blue  eyes  gazed  away 
into  the  past,  and  suddenly  his  shyness  would  return 
to  him  and  the  clock  in  the  corner  would  begin  to 
wheeze  in  preparation  to  striking  the  hour,  and  he 
would  say  that  it  was  time  for  me  to  go  to  bed.  But 
although  our  understanding  of  one  another  was,  I  am 
sure,  so  excellent,  our  rare  conversations  remained 
always  on  similar  fantastic  subjects,  nor  ever  approached 
the  intimate  or  the  personal. 

Then  he  fell  ill  and  died  when  he  was  over  eighty, 
and  became  a  name  like  the  others,  and  his  portrait 
took  its  place  among  the  rest,  with  a  label  recording 
the  dates  of  his  birth  and  death. 


220 


APPENDIX 
A  Note  on  Thieves'  Cant 

THE  vocabulary  given  on  page  135  contributes  no  word 
which  may  not  be  found  in  any  cant  dictionary,  and 
therefore  may  appear  undeserving  of  inclusion.  But  I 
put  it  in  because  I  think  few  people,  apart  from  students  of 
philology,  realize  the  existence  of  that  large  section  of  our 
language  in  use  among  the  vagabond  classes.  Cant  and 
slang,  to  most  people's  minds,  are  synonymous,  but  this  is 
an  error  of  belief:  slang  creeps  from  many  sources  into  the 
river  of  language,  and  so  mingles  with  it  that  in  course  of 
time  many  use  it  without  knowing  that  they  do  so  ;  cant,  on 
the  other  hand,  remains  definite  and  obscure  of  origin.  Slang 
is  loose,  expressive,  and  metaphorical ;  cant  is  tight  and 
correct :  it  has  even  a  literature  of  its  own,  broad  and  racy, 
incomprehensible  to  the  ordinary  reader  without  the  help  of 
a  glossary.  Its  words,  for  the  most  part,  bear  no  resemblance 
to  English  words  ;  unlike  slang,  they  are  not  words  adapted, 
for  the  sake  of  vividness,  to  a  use  for  which  they  were  not 
originally  intended,  but  are  applied  strictly  to  their  peculiar 
meaning. 

Although  the  origin  of  cant  as  a  separate  jargon  or 
language  is  obscure — it  does  not  appear  in  England  till  the 
second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century — the  origin  of  certain 
of  its  words  may  be  traced.  Of  those  included  in  the 
vocabulary  on  page  135,  for  example,  ken,  for  house,  comes 
from  khan  (gipsy  and  Oriental)  ;  fogus,  for  tobacco,  comes 
from  fogo,  an  old  word  for  stench  ;  maund,  or  maunder,  to 
beg,  does  not  derive,  as  might  be  thought,  from  maung,  to 
beg,  a  gipsy  word  taken  from  the  Hindu,  but  from  the 
Anglo-Saxon  mand,  a  basket  ;    bouse,  to  drink  (which,  of 

221 


APPENDIX 

course,  has  given  us  booze,  with  the  same  meaning,  and 
which  in  the  fourteenth  century  was  perfectly  good  EngHsh), 
comes  from  the  Dutch  huyzen^  to  tipple.  Abram^  naked,  is 
found  as  ahrannoi^  with  the  same  meaning,  in  Hungarian 
gipsy  ;  cassan,  cheese,  is  cas  in  English  gipsy  ;  dimher  sur- 
vives for  "  pretty "  in  Worcestershire.  Cheat  appears 
frequently  in  cant  as  a  common  affix. 

As  for  autem  mort^  I  find  it  in  an  early  authority  thus  de- 
fined :  "  These  autem  morts  be  married  women,  as  there  be 
but  a  few.  For  autem  in  their  language  is  a  church,  so  she  is 
a  wife  married  at  the  church,  and  they  be  as  chaste  as  a  cow 
I  have,  that  goeth  to  bull  every  moon,  with  what  bull  she 
careth  not." 


222 


INDEX 

ANNE,  Queen,  as  Princess  Anne,  138 
her  death,  160 
ARMiSTEAD,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  mistress  of  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  1 79 

BEAUMONT,  Francis,  his  friendship  with  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  55 
BACELLi,  Giannetta,  mistress  of  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  188-192 
BERKELEY,  Lady  Betty.    See  germaine,  Lady  Betty 
Berkeley  Castle,  169 

BLACKMORE,  his  poem  Prince  Arthur  quoted,  148 
BouRCHiER,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  buys  Knole  from  Lord  Say  & 
Sele,  5 

Builds  on  to  Knole,  6,  7 

Encloses  the  park,  21 

Allows  glass-making  in  the  park,  24 
BOWRA,  a  cricketer,  182 

BRUCE,  Lord,  his  duel  with  Edward  Sackville,  84-90 
BUCKHURST,  Lord.   See  sackville,  Thomas 

house  at  Withyham,  1 8  ;    and  mentioned  passim 
BUCKINGHAM,  Duke  of,  his  opinion  of  Charles,  Earl  of  Dorset,  144 
BUTLER,  Samuel,  his  opinion  of  Charles,  Earl  of  Dorset,  144 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
BURKE,  Edmund,  letter  from,  197-198 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  197 
BYRON,  Lord,  quoted,  28,  204 

friendship  with  4th  Duke  of  Dorset,  203—204 

his  letters  to  Thomas  Moore,  204—205 

CARTWRiGHT,  William,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
CHAMPCENETZ,  Comte  de,  a  French  fugitive,  188 
CHARLES  I,  verses  on  the  death  of,  106—107 
CHARLES  II,  anecdote  of  his  childhood,  98 
at  Edgehill,  107 
Chapter  VI  passim 
CLIFFORD,  Lady  Anne,  3rd  Countess  of  Dorset,  description  of  her- 
self, 49-50 
marries  Richard  Sackville,  52 
her  children,  53 
her  diary  quoted,  59-72 
her  later  vears,  73-78 

223 


INDEX 

COLIGNY,  Odet  de,  Cardinal  of  Chatillon,  entertained  by  Thomas 

Sackville  at  Shene,  36  seq. 
COLYEAR,  Elizabeth,  marries  ist  Duke  of  Dorset,  153 
CONGREVE,  William,  his  opinion  of  Charles,  Earl  of  Dorset,  141 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
COPE,  Arabella  Diana,  marries  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  192 

her  character,  192-194 

marries  Lord  Whitworth,  202 

living  at  Knole,  217-218 

death  of,  219 
COPE,  Eliza,  letter  from,  97 
Copt  Hall,  III,  128 

couRTHOPE,  History  of  English  Literature  quoted,  45 
COWLEY,  Abraham,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
CRANFiELD,  Lady  Frances,  marries  5th  Earl  of  Dorset,  1 1 1 
CRANMER,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  gives  Knole  to  Henry  VIII,  8 
Cricket,  155,  1 81-183 
CUMBERLAND,  Francis,  Earl  of,  55 

George,  Earl  of,  Queen  Elizabeth's  champion,  48 
his  adventures,  49 
his  death,  51 
his  will,  SS 

Margaret,  Countess  of,  52—59  passim 
her  death,  62 
CURZON,  Mary,  4th  Countess  of  Dorset,  84 

governess  to  the  children  of  Charles  I,  97—98 

DESMOND,  Catherine  Fitzgerald,  Countess  of,  14 
DEVONSHIRE,  Duchcss  of,  her  opinion  of  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset, 

176 
his  letters  to  her,  183,  184,  188 
her  letter  about  a  black  page,  191 
DERBY,  Countess  of.   See  Hamilton,  Lady  Betty 
Diamond  necklace,  affair  of  the,  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset's  dispatches  on, 
184-185 
half  the  diamonds  bought  by  him,  185 
DiGBY,  Sir  Kenelm,  marries  Venetia  Stanley,  58 

friendship  with  4th  Earl  of  Dorset,  104-106 
his  portrait  at  Knole,  105,  151 
Venetia  Stanley,  Lady,  mistress  of  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  58 

224 


INDEX 

DORSET,  Earls  and  Dukes  of.    See  sackville 

1st  Duchess  of.    See  colyear,  Elizabeth 

2nd  Duchess  of,  173 

3rd  Duchess  of    See  cope,  Arabella  Diana 

House,  London,  31 

3rd  Countess  of    See  Clifford,  Lady  Anne 

4th  Countess  of.    See  curzon,  Mary 

5th  Countess  of.   See  cranfield,  Lady  Frances 

6th  Countess  of,  128,  150 
Drayton  House,  169 

bequeathed   to   Lord   George  Sackville  by   Lady   Betty  Ger- 
maine,  172 
DRAYTON,  Michael,  his  friendship  with  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  59 
dryden,  John,  his  debt  to  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  145,  147,  148 

letter  from,  149 

at  Knole,  149 

his  enmity  with  Shadwell,  150 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 

satirized  by  Blackmore,  148 

his  works  dedicated  to  Dorset,  148 
DURFEY,  Tom,  a  pensioner  at  Knole,  1 50,  1 54 

verses  quoted,  150 

his  portraits,  150,  151 

Evelyn's  Diary,  quoted,  1 23 
ELIZABETH,   Queen,  gives   Knole   to  Thomas  Sackville,  34-38 
her  death,  50 

FARREN,  Elizabeth,  marries  the  Earl  of  Derby,  180 
FLATTMANN,  Thomas,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
FLETCHER,  his  friendship  with  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  59 
FOOTE,  Samuel,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  198 

GAINSBOROUGH,  Thomas,  draws  Mme.  Baccelli,  189 
his  receipt  for  painting,  189,  ccviii. 
GEORGE  I,  accession  of,  1 60-1 61 
GEORGE  II,  accession  of,  1 61-162 
GERMAiNE,  Lady  Betty,  her  rooms  at  Knole,  12-13 
as  a  guest  at  Knole,  167-172 
Sir  John,  169-17 1 

225  P 


INDEX 

GERBETZOw,  Countcss,  her  affair  with  Lord  Whitworth,  202 
GOLDSMITH,  Oliver,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  198 
GORBODUC,  33,  41-42,  43 
GOSSE,  Edmund,  quoted,  32 
GWYNN,  Nell,  122-127 

HAMILTON,  Lady  Betty  (Countess  of  Derby),  in  love  with  3rd 
Duke  of  Dorset,  1 79 

married  off  to  Lord  Derby,  179-180,  188 
HENRY  VIII  obtains  Knole  from  Cranmer,  8 

makes  a  garden  there,  21 
HEYWOOD,  Jasper,  quoted,  32 
HOBBS,  Thomas,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
HOPPNER,  John,  his  portrait  of  the  3rd  Duchess  of  Dorset,  192 

stays  at  Knole  to  paint  the  three  children,  193 

his  portrait  of  the  children,  196 

asked  for  his  own  portrait  by  the  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  198 
HUMPHREY,  Ozias,  quarrels  with  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  194 

receipts  for  pictures,  197 

JAMES  I,  interviews  with  Lady  Anne  Clifford,  65-66 
JAMES  II  at  Edgehill,  107 
JONSON,  Ben,  his  friendship  with  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  59 

poem  on  his  death  by  5th  Earl  of  Dorset,  112 
JOHNSON,  Dr.,  quoted,  116,  119 

KNELLER,  Sir  Godfrey,  portraits  by  him  at  Knole,  29,  153 
KNOLE  described,  1-19 
early  history  of  the  house,  5 

becomes  the  palace  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  5 
repairs  and  expenses,  6—8 
acquired  by  Henry  VIII,  8 
acquired  by  Thomas  Sackville,  34,  38 
lead- work  at,  39 
list  of  servants  at,  78—81 

raided  by  Cromwell's  soldiers,  82-83,  1 01-104 
expenses  at,  in  time  of  Charles  I,  91 
banquet  and  menus,  93-94 
household  stuff  at,  95-96 
arms  at,  99-100 

acquisitions  from  Copt  Hall,  loi 

226 


INDEX 

KNOLE COnt. 

the  Cellars  at,  133,  178 

Horace  Walpole's  opinion  on,  181,  190 

the  Green  Court,  3 

the  Stone  Court,  3,  iii 

the  Water  Court,  4 

Great  Hall,  built,  6  ;  altered,  39 

Great  Staircase,  built,  6,  39 

the  Ballroom,  6  ;   frieze  in,  1 1 

Bourchier's  Tower,  7 

Bourchier's  Oriel,  8 

Queen's  Court  and  Slaughter-house,  7 

the  Brown  Gallery,  built,  7  ;   described,  1 3 

the  Cartoon  Gallery,  described,  10- 11 

Lady  Betty  Germaine's  Rooms,  described,  12,13 

the  Leicester  Gallery,  described,  13-14 

the  King's  Bedroom,  described,  15 

the  Venetian  Ambassador's  Bedroom,  described,  15-16 

the  Chapel,  described,  16-17 

the  Garden,  described,  20,  218 

Garden  Accounts,  21—24 

the  Park,  24-26  ;   additions  to,  92 

LEBRUN,  Mme.  Vigee,  stays  at  Knole,  197 
LEICESTER,    Robert    Dudley,  Earl    of,    his    brief  ownership    of 
Knole,  13 
LENNOX,  Lady  Sarah,  her  letters  quoted,  180 
LOCKE,  John,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 

MACAULAY,  quoted,  138,  I43-H5,  147-148 
MANN,  Sir  Horace,  a  cricketer,  182 
MARIE  ANTOINETTE,  her  friendship  with  the  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset, 

184,  187 
MILLER,  a  cricketer,  182 
MiNSKULL,  a  cricketer,  182 
Mirror  for  Magistrates,  33,  43  ;   quoted,  44 

Professor  Saintsbury  on,  45-47 
MONTGOLFiER,  his  aeronautical  projects,  185-187 
MORETON,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  makes  alterations  at  Knole,  8 
MOTTE,  Mme.  de  la,  1 85 

227 


INDEX 
MUSCOViTA,  Mme,  173 

Norfolk,  Duchess  of,  marries  Sir  John  Germaine,  170 


N' 


OpiE,  John,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  197 
"Orange  Moll,"  123,  125 
OTWAY,  Thomas,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 

PARSONS,  Nancy,  taken  abroad  by  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  178 
abandoned  by  him,  1 79 
PEEL,  Sir  Robert,  letters  to  Lord  Whitworth,  208-214 
PEPYS,  Samuel,  quoted,  116,  117,1 24,  1 25 
POPE,  Alexander,  his  epitaph  on  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  151 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
Pot-pourri,  12;    Lady  Betty  Germaine's  receipt  for,  172 
powERSCOURT,  Lord,  friend  of  4th  Duke  of  Dorset,  206 
PRIOR,  Matthew,  visits  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  140 

educated  at  Lord  Dorset's  expense,  147 

verses  quoted,  147 

mentioned  by  Macaulay,  145 

RADCLiFFE,  Mrs.  Ann,  visits  Knole,  24 
Religio  Medici,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  on,  1 05- 1 06 
REYNOLDS,  Sir  Joshua,  his  portrait  of  Mile.  Bacelli,  189 

his  portrait  of  the  Chinese  page,  191 

his  portrait  of  himself,  196-197 

his  portrait  of  the  Duke  of  Dorset,  198 
ROCHE,  Mrs.  Ann,  marries  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  140,  141 
ROCHESTER,  John  Wilmot,  Earl  of,  117 

his  opinion  of  Charles,  Earl  of  Dorset,  145 

his  portrait  of  Knole,  150 
ROw^E,  Nicholas,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
Rye  House  Plot,  letter  referring  to  the,  134-135 
ROHAN,  Cardinal  de,  184 

SACKViLLES,  the,  described,  28-29 
their  origin,  29-30 
Sackville,  Herbrand   de,   comes   into   England   with  William   the 
Conqueror,  30 

228 


INDEX 

SACKVILLE COnt. 

Sir  Richard,  suggests  The  Scholemaster  to  Ascham,  30 

his  London  property,  31 
Thomas,  ist  Earl  of  Dorset,  makes  alterations  at  Knole,  6, 

39 
his  early  life,  32 

his  political  career,  34-41 

his  literary  works,  41-47 

his  armour  described,  99 
Richard,  3rd  Earl  of  Dorset,  marries  Lady  Anne  Clifford, 
52 

description  of,  57 

his  character,  57-59 

mentioned  in  Lady  Anne  Clifford's  diary,  54-72  passim 

his  death,  72 
Edward,  4th  Earl  of  Dorset,  29,  82 

his  duel  with  Lord  Bruce,  84-90 

his  income  and  expenses,  91-92,  93 

his  possessions  in  America,  92-93 

during  the  Civil  War,  106-1 10 
Hon.  Edward,  murdered  by  the  Roundheads,  106 

poem  on  his  death,  ibid. 
Richard,  5th  Earl  of  Dorset,  1 1 1 

his    marriage   settlement   with    Lady    Frances    Cranfield, 
111-112 

his  memorandum  books,  1 1 2—1 14 
Hon.  Thomas,  epitaph  on,  114 
Charles,  6th  Earl  of  Dorset;    his  silver  at  Knole,  15-29 

described,  115 

his  youth,  1 16-127 

goes  abroad,  127 

marries  ;   his  love-letter,  1 28 

his  finances,  129-133 

his  later  years,  137-143 

his  melancholia  and  death,  141 

his  character,  143-145 

his  literary  merit,  145  ;  and  songs  quoted,  1 19,  137,  146 

his  patronage  of  poets,  1 47-1 51 

compared  to  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  200 
229 


INDEX 

SACKVILLE COnt. 

Lionel,  1st  Duke  of  Dorset;    his  character  and  relations  with 
his  sons,  152—157 

as  a  child,  157-158 

his  early  years,  158 

announces  their  accession  to  George  I  and  George  II, 
160-163 

becomes  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  163—167 
Lord  George,  quoted,  140,  157,  161 

his  relations  with  his  father,  155 

his  political  career,  156-157 

inherits  Drayton  from  Lady  Betty  Germaine,  172 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  198 
Lord  John,  a  cricketer,  155,  181 

his  melancholia  and  death,  177 
Charles,  2nd  Duke  of  Dorset,  a  wastrel,  155 

reputed  mad,  173 

his  poems  quoted,  173-174 
John  Frederick,  3rd  Duke  of  Dorset,  described,  29,  176-177 

his  youth  and  love-affairs,  177-180 

as  a  patron  of  cricket,  1 81-183 

as  Ambassador  in  Paris,  183—188 

at  Knole  with  the  Baccelli,  189-192 

his  marriage  and  later  years,  192—199 

his  melancholia  and  death,  199-200 
George  John  Frederick,  4th  Duke  of  Dorset,  29 

his  childhood,  193,  203 

his  friendship  with  Byron,  204-205 

killed  out  hunting,  206-208 
Lord  Lionel ;   his  unsociability,  1 1 

at  Knole,  83 

his  anecdote  of  Hoppner's  picture,  196 

at  Knole,  219-220 
Lady  Margaret  (afterwards  Countess  of  Thanet),  mentioned  in 
Lady  Anne  CHfford's  Diary,  21,  53,  54,  61,  64,  67,  70 

her  portrait  at  Knole,  68 
Lady  Elizabeth  (Countess  de  laWarr),  in  Hoppner's  portrait,  196 

succeeds  to  Knole,  219 

at  Knowsley,  1 80 

230 


INDEX 

SAiNTSBURY,  Professor,  quoted,  41,  ^^-^7 
SEDLEY,  Sir  Charles,  117 

SHADWELL,  Thomas,  patronized  by  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  145-150 
SMITH,  Captain  Robert,  builds  sham  ruins  in  Knole  Park,  26 
SPENSER,  Edmund,  sonnet  to  Thomas  Sackville,  43 
STANLEY,  Venetia.    See  digby.  Lady 
STUART,  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  her  altar  at  Knole,  16,  35 
SWIFT,  Jonathan,  quoted,  141 
letter  from,  153,  168 

THEATRES  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  118,  122-124 
Thieves'  cant  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  135,  and  Appendix  221 
Tobacco,  40 

WALLER,  Edmund,  his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 
WALPOLE,  Horace,  quoted,  119;  on  Knole,  17,  150,  181,  190 
Waterloo,  Sir  Robert  Peel's  letters  relating  to  battle  of,  208-214  ; 

other  accounts  of,  214-217 
WELLINGTON,  Duke  of,  letter  from,  about  Waterloo,  215 
WHiTWORTH,  Lord,  marries  Arabella  Diana,  Duchess  of  Dorset,  202 

recalled  from  St.  Petersburg,  201 

his  entanglement  with  Countess  Gerbetzow,  202 

Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  203 

letters  to  him  from  Peel,  208-214 
WILLIAM  III,  158 
wiTHYHAM,  Sackville  vault  at,  18 

Lady  Anne  Clifford's  visit  to,  7 1 

epitaphs  at,  114 
WOFFINGTON,  Margaret,  her  relations  with  ist  Duke  of  Dorset,  165- 
167 

her  portrait  at  Knole,  198 
WRAXALL,  Sir  Nathaniel,  quoted,  184,  192,  203 
WYCHERLEY,  William,  his  opinion  of  6th  Earl  of  Dorset,  144; 

his  portrait  at  Knole,  151 


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